I have an Airport Extreme connected to the Charter modem downstairs.
Upstairs in my office I have an Airport Express with a printer connected via USB.
I believe I have the Express correctly configured to extend or expand or whatever the network.
Just so you are aware, using a wireless connection between base stations in an extended Wi-Fi network is bound to provide the least overall bandwidth performance. This is not unique to Apple products.
Ideally you would want to connect them by Ethernet. However, this is not always possible or ideal for every situation. An alternative would be to employ powerline adapters. These would create a pseudo Ethernet network and be the next best scenario for performance.
My MB Air sits on a desk about 7 feet from the Express in my office.
If I connect to the Express via Ethernet to USB connector to MB Air, my download speed is about 65 Mb/s, upload about 4 Mb/s and Ping about 31ms.
If I connect via wifi, the download drops to about 20 Mb/s and the upload and ping stay the same.
Make sense?
The extending AirPort Express can only extend the Extreme's Wi-Fi network at the bandwidth that it receives. So, your MBA may see its connection with the Express with a full strength signal, that signal may have poor bandwidth (available speed) to be of much use.
When connected by Ethernet you, at least, eliminate one segment of a Wi-Fi network and should notice some improvement in performance.
Anything to improve wifi?
Yes. Use wired connections between base stations. If not possible, use powerline adapters instead. Finally, if that is still not an option, try placing the extending Express in a location where the signal quality of the Extreme is still high enough for the best possible bandwidth. To figure out where that you be, take a look at the following AirPort User tip on optimal base station placement. Please post back your results.
When web sites take a long time to respond and fill the page is that the download or ping or both?
Sort of. Download data transfer rates are dependent on a number of factors and are accumulative. Some of them are:
- The web site host ability to service multiple requests.
- The current Internet conditions.
- Your ISP's ability to provide you with a specific download "speed."
- Your modem.
- Your router.
- Your Wi-Fi network.
- Your computer's Wi-Fi card & network configuration settings.
Ping is one measurement and is designed to give you a snapshot of the overall latency between two devices on a network. Internet speed testing apps use it to show latency between your computer and the web-site host server. As you can imagine from the factors I provided above, there are many hops between those two locations that can affect data transfer latency ... but Ping alone is NOT an accurate test and should not be depended on alone.
The following two references may help give you a better idea about measuring network performance:
The other thing that can cause long delays in web page loading is DNS. DNS can be thought of as the Internet's Yellow Pages. If you have the wrong phone book or it is out-of-date, accessing a site can be delayed. By default, your ISP will provide you with their DNS servers for this service. However, what they provide may not be the best performing servers in your situation.
To get an idea on making DNS server comparisons, you can use an app, like Namebench to find the best servers for your location.
