Setting up Airport Extreme 802.11ac

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I have added a new AX to my network.

In the past, Apple has always abbreviated an AirPort Express as AX and an AirPort Extreme as AEBS. A Time Capsule abbreviation actually makes sense.....it is a TC.

It appears that you are abbreviating the AirPort Extreme as AX in your post, correct? We will assume that is the case.

The plan was to take the older AX and use to extend.

An AirPort Extreme can extend by connecting to the "new" AirPort Extreme using a wireless connection....or....a wired Ethernet connection. We are confused as to which connection type you are using. Can you confirm on that please?

If you see a Double NAT error though.......the extending AirPort is not configured correctly. You never want Double NAT on a network if it can be avoided....it slows down connections and makes communications among other network devices "iffy" at best.

Chances are, we need to start over again and configure the extending AirPort Extreme to operate correctly on your network. AirPort Utility on the iPad will virtually set up everything for you correctly and automatically.....you just need to name the AirPort Extreme device during the setup and tap Next.

If you plan to extend using an Ethernet connection, it will be necessary to verify that the Ethernet cable is working correctly before you set up the AirPort Extreme.

If you want the extending AirPort Extreme to connect to the new AirPort Extreme and extend using a wireless connection, then you would not use an Ethernet cable at all.

An Ethernet cable and the WAN port would only be involved if you were planning to connect the AirPorts together permanently using a wired Ethernet cable connection.

AirPort Utility will practically configure the AirPort Extreme to extend for you automatically. You don't have to worry about manual settings like "Bridge Mode" and other things like that. Let the utility do the work for you, it will make the right decisions.

If you can tell us whether you are using an iPhone or iPad or a Mac to set things up, we can give you the step by step. If you have a Mac, we assume that it is running the Mavericks, Mountain Lion or Lion operating system. Would that be correct?

An iPhone or iPad is probably the easiest device to use to set things up, if you have one handy.

Are the Airport Extremes both 802.11ac models? If one is the vertical tower (.11ac) and the other is the flat (.11a/b/g/n), you may run into performance issues. If you have different SSIds configured in 2.4G that you are connecting to compared to 5G, 2.4G can be impacted by other SSIDs around you and with 11 channels to choose from, it is painful at times. You can configure separate 5G SSIDs, but you can run into device connectivity and compatibility, and range issues with 5G.

The Double NAT will make things worse, because you have built an island within an island. The outer NAT layer has no visibility to the inner NAT layer. Your internet traffic from the inner NAT is being NATTed twice.

Double NAT is usually caused because you have more than one DHCP server in your local network.

If your VZ equipment is a router/gateway, it should be the only DHCP server on the private LAN side. If it is a modem, than there should be a single DHCP server on the .11ac which is wired to the modem. DHCP on the unwired Extreme will make your traffic worse.

I'm answering your question about having the old Extreme set up to wirelessly extend the signal from the new Extreme. Obviously, to wirelessly extend, you would not use an Ethernet cable to connect the two Extremes together at any time.

I assume that you already have the new Extreme set up correctly......this means without a Double NAT error. Double NAT will slow down your network and create communication problems between devices on your network, not to mention browsing errors. I would never do this.

If you want to run Double NAT....then I cannot help and will step back from this post.

If you want to run the new Extreme correctly, then make sure that the new Extreme....which is connected to your modem/router with an Ethernet cable.....is configured to operate in Bridge Mode.

Get things working with the new Extreme first. Keep the old Extreme powered off until you have the new Extreme working well.

When you are happy with the performance of the new Extreme, post back and we will set up the old Extreme to wirelessly extend the signal from the new Extreme using the iPad.

When you "extend" using wireless, you will lose about half of the potential speed on the entire network.....something that the advertising never seems to mention.

That is a nature of the beast with extending using wireless.

The only way to avoid this loss is connect the AirPorts using Ethernet cabling.

There are other mechanisms of getting ethernet to rooms without running actual Cat5/5e/6. If you have Coax in each room, it can be used with MoCA devices (here is an example - http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Ethernet-Adapter-without-Routers/dp/B008EQ4BQG/r ef=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1412684626&sr=8-4&keywords=actiontec) . Powerline networking is an option. There is also HPNA (using Cat3 for network connectivity).

There are nuances to the new 11ac compared to the older 11a/b/g/n, in terms of beam forming and other RF optimizations. It does not mean the old Extreme is junk and should be thrown away. I suggest you keep it and turn it off till you have the new 11ac working as you desire. Follow Bob's directions and you will have a reasonable functional network.

Wireless extension, as Bob mentions, causes the wireless network to slow down significantly. I had a 11ac that I returned because rest of my network is using flat Extremes and TCs, because of similar issues. The Wireless environment is unique to each installation.

I am ready to take the next step properly setting up extender.

OK, we can do that....but it would be a good idea to first review the upsides and downsides of the two methods to extend a network......extend using wireless and extend using Ethernet, since you say that you want to do this properly. As you might imagine, one method is much better than the other as far as performance on your network is concerned.

Let's review extending using wireless first, since you indicate that this is what you might want to do.

As you know, the wireless signal begins to slow down as soon as it leaves your "main" wireless access point.....the new AirPort Extreme....and it also slows down as it encounters any type of obstruction in its signal path to a wireless device.

So, for example, let's say that the wireless signal leaves your new AirPort Extreme with an Internet speed signal of 50 Mbps. After the signal must pass through a few walls or a ceiling on the way to the location of the older AirPort Extreme that will be extending the wireless network, the speed of the signal might slow to only 20-25 Mbps by the time that it reaches the older AirPort Extreme.

When the AirPort Extreme extends the signal using wireless, it can only extend the quality and speed of signal that it receives.....maybe 20-25 Mbps. Then the signal will slow down even more as it travels further away from the extending AirPort Extreme as it encounters any obstructions in the signal path.

So, by the time the signal actually reaches a wireless device at the remote end of your house, that signal might be down to something in the 5-10 Mbps range, depending on the actual location where you install the AirPort Extreme that will be used to extend the signal.

That is but one example.....your results will vary depending on distance, obstructions and construction type of the walls and ceilings, etc.

In addition, a network that extends using wireless is more susceptible to picking up wireless interference from other sources.

Bottom line.....extending using wireless is always a going to result in significant compromises and loss of the speed on the network. Nature of the beast.

Now, lets say that you decide to make the investment in installing an Ethernet cable from the new AirPort Extreme to the exact location in your home where you need additional wireless signal coverage. In this case, there is no signal loss in an Ethernet cable up to 300+ feet or about 100 meters, so the extending Extreme gets the full 50 Mbps speed and it broadcasts that signal.

The result is that you will have much higher speeds on your network extending the signal using Ethernet.

Have you made up your mind that you want to extend the signal using wireless, or can you consider extending using Ethernet?

The ActionTec that I mentioned will give you back a CoAx and an ethernet RJ45, so you can have both. HPNA/Powerline may be a bit more tedious. You do not need to climb into the attic and go into crawl spaces.

Do you know if your Coax plant is using an RG59 cable or an RG6? RG6 has better bandwidth than RG59, but if you are saying it is an older house, it may be highly likely that you have RG59 cabling.

In theory, the co-ax to Ethernet adapters will work. In practice though, things do not always work as well as the theory might suggest.

If you decide to try the co-ax adapters, I would recommend that you have a clear understanding of the store's return policy before you buy.

This is one of those times where you will not know how well.....or if.....something will work until you try it out in your home.

Keep in mind that most co-ax to Ethernet adapters will offer up to 200-250 Mbps performance. Your new "ac" AirPort Extreme is capable of operating up to almost 1,000 Mbps and the older Extreme will top out at about 450 Mbps over wireless connections. There will be some performance loss with the adapters.....how much, we cannot say.....you will have to try them out.

If the co-ax adapters do not work as hoped, then you can explore the option of running Ethernet cable, which will support connections up to 1,000 Mbps if you use CAT5e or CAT6 cabling.