Black Boxes:
Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station
Plug it In
Setting up the AirPort Extreme is a reasonably simple matter. Just plug the power cord to the small AC/DC "brick" adapter and connect the DC power cord to the unit. Like other network equipment, there are no power switches--if the power has not failed, the unit is on.
Other ports on the device include a USB port for a printer, and two RJ45 ports--one for the WAN (connection to the Internet) and one for your local network. Users of dial-up Internet services can connect their POTS line and use their connection wirelessly. Those who are seeking additional transmission range can use the unit's antenna port. A Kensington security lock slot and a wall mounting bracket is also provided.
If your Internet connection comes in through a DSL modem or cable modem (i.e. you previously had your Mac hooked directly to your broadband modem, and connected to the Internet with your Mac set up to establish a PPPoE connection), you can connect the AirPort Extreme directly to your broadband modem via the WAN port. However, if you are already using a wired Ethernet router to establish your PPPoE connection, you will want to use the AirPort Extreme's LAN port.
Set it Up
When we connected the unit to a dual-1.25GHz (mirrored drive door) Power Mac G4 and tried to install the software from the provided CD-ROM, the installer reported that we already had the most current version of the software. (Another good reason to run Software Update on your Mac frequently.)
The Setup Assistant was a breeze to go through, a simple matter of following the onscreen instructions. The Setup Assistant relies on the settings that your computer's previous Internet connection was based on, so if you had everything set up correctly there, there won't be a lot of things to think about. At the conclusion of the Setup Assistant, your configured computer will access the AirPort network that the Setup Assistant just created.
On the Air
Once we got our AirPort network off the ground, it didn't take much effort to make other Wi-Fi devices find our newly created network. We used it as a bridge to the LAN in our office to test the media client features of an Amoisonic NDP9200 Wi-Fi-enabled DVD player, setting up a server on a machine in our test area that was connected to our LAN. The two sides of the connection found each other with some coaxing and adjusting of DHCP settings, but we could view images and music files held on a file server by mapping some drive letters and pointing the media server software to our repository of files.
Mac Daddy
The only low point of the product is its reliance of Mac OS-based setup and maintenance programs. However, at the time of this writing, Apple is offering a preview of a Windows AirPort Admin Utility on their web site. This will go a long way to adding to the appeal of the unit for Mac-impaired users.
The included software is excellent, and makes it easy to manage your network. We think that the AirPort Extreme is a great product that does what it says it will do, with the usual little tweaking that comes with every network technology we have seen thus far.
SMART SPECS
802.11g wireless protocol
10/100BASE-T Ethernet WAN port
10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN port
Internal antenna
External antenna connector
USB port
Company: Apple Computer, Inc.
Phone: (800) MY-APPLE
Web Site: www.apple.com
Price: $199
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