Airport / Virgin Superhub

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Airport / Virgin Superhub

Hi everyone - can some please explain to me the benefits of getting an Airport Extreme/Express/Time Capsule if I already have a Virgin Superhub?

How do the two products co-exist, exactly?

Our Virgin Superhub is located in an upstairs bedroom and the signal downstairs can sometime be less than perfect (certainly not 100mb as advertised...)

We have in our house a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, 2 x iPads, 2 x iPhones and an Apple TV device. They don't all run at once but there's certainly quite a demand for bandwidth at times.

Should I notice a considerable performance difference if I were to purchase one of the Airport products? What would I need to do to the Virgin Superhub to get the best strength?

Networks have never been my strongpoint... 🙂

Airport-OTHER

Posted on Dec 19, 2013 2:28 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 20, 2013 2:26 PM in response to essexstu

Hi

I'm with virgin too. We have the Superhub 1 which is renowned for poor signal strength. I use it in modem mode and connect it to an AirPort Extreme which is then extended by an Airport Express. I find this works really well. The new AirPort Extreme is supposedly better - it has more aerials.

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Answer 2

essexstu Author

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Dec 20, 2013 3:19 PM in response to markgill77

Thanks for your answer. It kind of makes sense but there were a few other points I'm unsure of:

- Would I need an Extreme and an Express (like you) to get the best coverage, or if not, which one would be best?

- Is the Time Capsule effectively the same as the Extreme/Express, but with added backup facility?

- Does the Extreme/Express/Time Capsule need to be situated next to the existing Virgin Superhub (once that Superhub has been set to modem mode) or can it be in a different room altogether?

Thanks 🙂

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Answer 3

Dec 21, 2013 1:50 AM in response to essexstu

Hi

Once you have put the superhub into modem mode, you connect the AirPort Extreme or Time Capsule to it by ethernet cable. The best location would be to place the router in the middle of the house to get the best signal, but you will be limited by whether you can or happy to run the ethernet cable back to the superhub.

I believe the new AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule broadcast a stronger signal than the Airport Express - whether you will need to extend will depend on the strength of your signal and this will be affected by construction and background noise. I suggest you start with the one device and then use something like Inssider to measure the strength of the signal in various locations around the house. If you need to extend the network you could use an airport express but bear in mind you lose some wifi overhead so you lose some speed. The best set up is to connect the device you use to extend to the original router by ethernet cable - this is called a roaming network. Search on Airport and roaming on the apple site to get a detailed overview of networking.

The AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule are probably the way to go, but at a cost. As you say Time Capsule has the added advantage of the backup facility. The other key advantage is that the WAN and LAN ports are 1Gb, the Airport Express is only 100mbps qso if you use ethernet you will be constraining yourself.

Hope this helps.

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Answer 4

essexstu Author

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Dec 21, 2013 2:06 AM in response to markgill77

Thanks, that's a great answer 🙂

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