I know that you can't do this with the current line of Apple Airport products, that is, have say, 3x Airport Extremes, one on the first floor, another on the second floor, the third on the third floor. The one on the first floor acts as the router, the one on the second floor picks up that signal to extend it. But the one on the third floor won't get the signal from the one on the second floor and 'daisy chain' the signal but rather try to connect to the one on the first floor. Now why is that? You would think Apple would have gotten around this limitation instead of forcing you to hard wire and setup the routers in Bridge mode. A quick Google search shows that this is something that has had a lot of discussion and many a people would want the flexibility to do just that.

Further, are there any wireless N routers + access points out there that do this now?

I know that you can't do this with the current line of Apple Airport products, that is, have say, 3x Airport Extremes, one on the first floor, another on the second floor, the third on the third floor. The one on the first floor acts as the router, the one on the second floor picks up that signal to extend it. But the one on the third floor won't get the signal from the one on the second floor and 'daisy chain' the signal but rather try to connect to the one on the first floor. Now why is that? You would think Apple would have gotten around this limitation instead of forcing you to hard wire and setup the routers in Bridge mode. A quick Google search shows that this is something that has had a lot of discussion and many a people would want the flexibility to do just that.

Further, are there any wireless N routers + access points out there that do this now?

Apple certainly supports it, as part of the WDS configuration.

You can choose either WDS main, relay or remote.

To quote from the configuration utility:
"The relayAirPort wireless device is connected to the main AirPort wireless device and shares its Internet connection with remote and relay AirPort wireless devices."

Ok, thats true, but only for Wireless G speeds, not Wireless N as I poorly alluded to in my initial post


"Extend a wireless network allows faster "n" speeds on a network with minimal bandwidth loss. It's easy to configure as well.

WDS operates on "g" wireless only, so even if you have a new Apple "n" router, you'll lose any advantage of having "n" capability on your router.

Each "remote" that you add to a WDS setup will cut the bandwidth on the entire network in half. So, if you have a main base station and remote setup in a WDS confguration, you'll have a "g" wireless network running at 1/2 speed. If you add another remote, the entire network will run at 1/4 speed.

If all of your devices are newer Apple AirPort "n" devices, you can use the "extend" setup.https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2730831?start=0&tstart=0

Image 3 is ideally what I want to do...

https://discussions.apple.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/2-17989589-102501/Screen+Shot+2012-03-29+at+11.36.18+AM.png

Ok, thats true, but only for Wireless G speeds, not Wireless N as I poorly alluded to in my initial post

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2730831?start=0&tstart=0

Yes, true.

It looks like the WDS spec hasn't been updated for 802.11n yet. Other companies, like Netgear, also don't support it with 802.11n.

I'll admit that I'm not that familiar with such a setup, but a quick Google search on 'apple airport WDS configuration' turned up a lot of hits and some dependent on the base models being used.

But it seems for the later devices there appears to be a better suggested method to use, such as just one discussion hit at:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3954245?start=0&tstart=0

Why not make the middle floor the source of your main router and then extend the network up and down a floor with the other expresses? You only have to cover a minimum distance that way, and both the lower and higher floors could connect to the main router as you mentioned in your first post.

I thought about that, but its not feasible in my friends setup that I am helping him with. Its a narrow town house and his setup has a basement (1st)-kitchen (2nd)-bedrooms (3rd)-indoor loft+top deck patio (4th), and only the 1st and 4th floors have cable outputs. With the Airport Extreme on the 1st floor, there is full signal on the second, 1-2 bar signal on the third, no signal on the fourth. With it on the 4th floor its about the same in reverse. So I need to relay/extend it twice. Yes I know hard wiring and using a bridge is an option but wanted to avoid drilling and the like.

Besides, it shouldn't be that complicated...

Have you considered 'ethernet over powerline'?

Tried multiple, didn't solve the problem. Wiring in the place won't allow for it. Besides, again, would like to go wireless here and maintain 802.11n speeds.

A look on Wiki shows 802.11s being promising but not sure where that is in deployment and if any of the Apple products on the market could even support it.

Do I gather from the posted hassles with this thread that Apple's kb articles for extending airport wi-fi using the optional methods just don't work?

A quick look at just two, they imply that's it quite simple, but I've noticed they do that sometimes. ;) Even for older appropriate software.

It seems so straight forward as they describe it.

AirPort Utility 5.1 Help: Extending the range of your wireless network (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=AirPortUtility/5.1/en/ap2045.html)

Wi-Fi base stations: Extending the range of your wireless network by adding additional Wi-Fi base stations (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4145)

... would like to go wireless here and maintain 802.11n speeds.

FWIW, WDS mode cuts your speed by 50% because the middle "relay" Airport has to receive and transmit.

Ya I saw those, as is evident with me posting that photo earlier in the tread. However, again, no hard wiring here. Also, going back to Ethernet over Powerline adapters, they wouldn't match 802.11n speeds anyways...

even if you could connect 802.11n routers in a WDS network one would presume that the speeds would be cut by 50% as well which would put it at half the speed of 802.11n anyways and not maintain that speed as you would like.

So the way I see it there are two options with current technology, either make a wireless network that performs below 802.11g speeds or figure out a way to wire the floors.


Sent from my iPhone

Agreed, although top speed on my Airport Extreme clocks in at 300mbps. If that were split 3x, that would give me somewhere in the 100-150mbps range, which is still 2x-3x the speeds on the 802.11g speeds.

Call me confused, but why not just get the Airports configured and working for any wireless extension method needed and use it and forget any super high speed techy detail stuff, as least for most Internet connections stuff and AFAIK most normal ISPs only provide about 15-50 Mbps download speed which is pretty decent for most users.

Or am I really missing the point??

Agreed, although top speed on my Airport Extreme clocks in at 300mbps. If that were split 3x, that would give me somewhere in the 100-150mbps range, which is still 2x-3x the speeds on the 802.11g speeds.

this is theory. you will never achieve this speed.

What's wrong with Ethernet over powerline? You get real 200mpbs over it.. And you can have more than 1 running in the same house..