Airport way overpriced - look at alternatives!

jeb1138

jeb1138

Carioca
Airport cards and having antennas built into machines is cool, but Airport Base Stations are way overpriced. Anybody 'thinking different' than me on this?
As far as alternatives, everything at
http://www.wi-fi.org/certified_products.asp
is compatible with Airport, and a lot of the options listed there offer more than a base station for a whole lot less.

This is what I have to do to get my G4 running wirelessly with a cable modem on a Linksys wireless + 4-port switch router:
1. Plug ethernet cable from cable modem into router
2. Turn computer on
3. There's no step 3 (heh heh)
No software is necessary and if you want to tweak the router settings, the router is configured via Internet Explorer.

My Linksys BEFW11S4, as an example, does everything the Airport Base station does, and it includes a 4-port 10/100Mbit switch (the Airport Base Station has only 1 LAN ethernet port and it's only 10Mbit), and it has an uplink port to connect it with other switches/routers/whatever, and it has lots of configuration options if you want them, and it costs $170 (at buy.com, for example) instead of $300 for the Airport Base Station. That's $130 or 40% less! And it works beautifully in OS X. I'm running my G4 wirelessly right now with 128-bit WEP encryption with 2 Windows 98 PC's, a Windows ME PC and a Windows XP PC connected via ethernet.

So....why would you ever buy an Airport Base Station? Anybody got any pro-Airport ideas?
 
The Apple/Lucent base station is a low end unit. It doesn't do very much but it looks cool.

I went with a Cisco model (aironet). It's range is much farther, it's speed is faster (not the rated speed, 11 Mbs, the tested speeds), it's security is much better, and it's price is much higher (can't win 'em all).

My problem with the LinkSys unit is that it's range is very poor. It seems like everybody bought one and nobody likes it. (Surely I'll be corrected here.)

Anyway, if attractive styling and decent range are what you're looking for then the Apple/Lucent base station is a good choice.

Vanguard

PS Regarding support, I've never had a single problem with any of my 802.11b stuff. I wouldn't worry too much about support.
PPS The aironet was just as easy to set up as Jeb's unit. I turned it on and it just worked.
 
The problem with the LinkSys AP is not whether it'll work with Macs, but how do you CONFIGURE them without Windows PCs? Saying that you just plug it in and it works is all very well and good, but what if you want to set up WEP? Or define access control? Or change the ESSID? Or anything? (If there's some tool for MacOSX that'll let me do that, please let me know, but the last time I looked there wasn't).

A low price is worth nothing to me if I can't configure the thing the way I want to. Thanks, but I'll stick with my "overpriced" Airport...
 
Is there anything easier than Airport that is also cheaper? I need cheap and easy, but if I can't find it, AirPort is the way I'm going...
 
I have an airport base station and am very impressed with it. There may be other products, but the airport has been around and it is tried and tested. I bought a mac because I didn't want to muck around trying to get things to work. I know a lot about PCs and NT but still took the decision to go with Mac at home.

A defining moment for me was when I got my new Airport Base station and turned it on. I already had a card in my iBook, and my iBook suddenly popped up a message saying that a new base station had been detected nearby and did I want to configure it. Within two clicks it had all been done. Now that is exactly how computers should be.

There may be alternatives, but really I cannot be bothered looking at them - everything that I have works.

Roger.
 
Yeah, Linksys doesn't support Macs, and that is definitely a minus. All I had to do, however, was plug in the router and turn on the computer and it worked. And kenny - you don't need a PC to configure it. I configure it from my Mac all the time, it's a web-based setup configuration and all you need is Internet Explorer to do it. And if there was ever a problem, well, that's what press3.com is for, right? ;)

Besides, Linksys isn't the only option. Look at www.practicallynetworked.com and you can find more stuff with similar features for a lot less than the Airport Base Station. SMC's Barricade goes for $180 and has a dial-up modem port, a print-server for your PCs, a great reputation AND 24-hour Mac support! I've never used it, so I don't know for sure if there are any bugs, but I know of some people who use it and say it works great w/ airport cards.

Anyway, I do think Airport cards and their integration into desktops are a great deal, but I just don't understand how Apple can charge so much more for less features (no 100Mbit switch is a big difference to me, at least) on the Base Station. If it were $200 and still didn't have the switch I'd say the extra price could be worth it for some people who want Apple's support and the coolest form factor. But at around 70-80% more, well, I just can't understand that.
 
Originally posted by JimNoble
If the Linksys AP is anything like my Linksys Router/Firewall, it's configured with a web browser...
Click to expand...

It's not. The LinkSys AP uses either the USB config tool or an SNMP config tool, both of which are Windows-only - no web-brower config. Theoretically, it should be possible to write MacOS(X) tools (especially for SNMP) that would do this, but nobody has (yet).
 
Originally posted by jeb1138
Yeah, Linksys doesn't support Macs, and that is definitely a minus. All I had to do, however, was plug in the router and turn on the computer and it worked. And kenny - you don't need a PC to configure it. I configure it from my Mac all the time, it's a web-based setup configuration and all you need is Internet Explorer to do it. And if there was ever a problem, well, that's what press3.com is for, right? ;)
Click to expand...

Really??? I know you can config the Linksys ROUTER with a web browser, but not the Linksys AP... What model of AP are you running? And what firmware rev has it got on it?
 
I'm using this one:
http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=22&prid=173
Not the "Wireless Access Point" (which is only $20 cheaper ($150) with no switch, a shorter range and no routing), the "Wireless AP + Cable/DSL Router w/ 4-port Switch."

I don't know how the Wireless Access Point is configured, but on the Wireless AP + Router model (BEFW11S4) everything (wireless settings and router settings) is configured with a web browser. That's how I do it from my G4.

Oh yeah, my firmware version is 1.39.2, but this model has always been configurable via web browsers, as far as I know.
 
Ah-ha!! That explains it. I've only had hands-on with the standalone AP.

So, I'm just browsing the user's guide... Is there a way to set up Access Control lists like the standalone AP? I'm not seeing it in the UG, but since you have one...
 
OK - I've just converted my home network to Airport. The only problem is my one Windows2000 PC obviously can't use an Apple airport card. I see lots o 802.11b wireless cards for PC, but they are all PC cards for laptops, not the PCI card I need for this desktop...

So the question is -

Who makes a good PCI 802.11b card that works well with Windows 2000, and will allow this PC to connect to my Apple Airport Base station...

Anybody?
 
If I remember correctly, the Airport card is just a Lucent 802.11b card with 'Airport' stickers slapped on. So anything 802.11b compliant will work just fine. For any machine though, I haven't seen ANY PCI-based wireless cards. What you will be looking at is getting a PCI card with PCMCIA(sp) slot(s) built-in. You then buy some sort of 802.11b card, including Airport, insert it into the PCI<->PCMCIA bridge card you bought, and off you go.

Wireless networking was originally designed for laptops, so all the actual cards are laptop-based. Apple is just taking a bold step and using PCMCIA slots in their desktops to give easy wireless networking support.

Rather odd if you ask me.
 
Krevinek is right, you just can't get straight-up PCI cards for desktops on PCs. Cheers to Apple for realizing the usefulness of wireless connectivity in desktops.

Kenny - the access controls available on the Linksys AP+Router are all 'blocking' controls: you can block any internal ip address, ports and MAC addresses - from accessing the internet. To keep unwanted wireless guests off your router completely you have to use WEP encryption and give the password to the users (at least you only have to enter it once). You can integrate the router with some firewall software from some company they've partnered with, but it's always seemed too much of a hassle to me. If you wanna see screen shots of some of the config panels I put some up on my Mac webpage for you:
http://homepage.mac.com/jeb1138/FileSharing.html
The ones in the manual are pretty hard to see.
 
Good call vanguard. Sheesh, I thought I'd looked all over for one before and couldn't find one. Interesting that they still use the PCMCIA card on the PCI card - I haven't seen that w/ other PCI cards, but then again maybe I just haven't looked hard enough .
 
It is 'cheaper' for the company to produce a PCI card that accepts the already-designed-and-made PCMCIA cards. It is more expensive for the consumer, but in some unusual way, it makes sense business-wise. You have to produce two different product lines anyways, so by making a generic-style PCI<->PCMCIA bridge card, they wind up with '3' products from 2 manufacturing lines: Laptop wireless, Desktop wireless, Desktop PCMCIA.
 
All the PCI 802.11b cards I've seen are like that. I guess it's cheaper for them to produce. Also, some of the cheaper base stations have a simple PCMCIA card inside. They tend to to be low end because their antennas aren't as good.

I'm pretty weak with micro-electronics so I'm out of my area here.
 
I am not much better off... I can do a little, but only enough to partially communicate with a PSX Mem card using a TI calculator...
 
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