Internet sharing thru telus wireless stick and airtunes

bluerinse · May 25th, 2009, 06:10 PM

Hi:

Sorry if this is long and complicated but here goes:

I'm lucky enough to have a house in the city and one in the country. My city house has dsl and i've hooked up a couple of airport expresses -- one to send wireless to 2 other computers, one to use with airtunes hooked up to my stereo. I can play music from all computers and surf from all computers.

I can't do this in the country as there is no such thing as high speed there. So I signed up for a Telus wireless stick. It works fine there. Now I'm thinking I could just get a good data plan with the stick and ditch phone and dsl downtown.

I'm not sure if this will work the way I want it. I got internet sharing working with my macbook on the stick and could surf on my imac. But the airtunes thing is not working.

Any tips/hints for this? Do I need to set up a new network and can I surf and listen to tunes at the same time?

I'm not exactly sure how to do this, is it something really obvious and simple? Or do I have to mess around with settings?

Thanks for listening.

chas_m · May 25th, 2009, 10:24 PM

My understanding -- and someone will correct me if I'm wrong -- is that these wireless sticks use the cell network, which doesn't provide ANYWHERE NEAR the speed of a real DSL or cable connection. IOW, not nearly enough bandwidth for airtunes.

So in short, I don't think your plan is going to work.

bluerinse · May 26th, 2009, 05:36 AM

Thanks Chas.

Wouldn't it be possible to use the airport express for airtunes and the wireless stick for internet? I use my macbook to share the internet part, which works fine, but I'm thinking I probably have to set up a second network with the AE to do the itunes thing?

Malco · May 26th, 2009, 03:02 PM

I read through the installation instructions and I'm unclear if their software modifies your network prefs or bypasses them. I'd take a look at the prefs and see what your "Network status" is. You might be able to run Airtunes and Telus stick simultaneously. If not you would have to switch networks.

Digital_Gary · May 26th, 2009, 03:15 PM

Airtunes does not need an internet connection so the speed of the Telus stick shouldn't matter.

I am guessing that since you are sharing the Telus internet via the Airport card in your Macbook, it over rides the Airport connection to the AP Express.

As a test, try disabling the internet sharing on the Macbook. Have the Telus stick for your internet connection and connect to the AP Express. You may need to set your service order in System Prefs to put the Telus stick as first priority.

Once connected to the AP Express, iTunes should be able to see it for Airtunes even though the Telus stick is providing internet access.

If this works, that is great for 1 computer. Your second computer will be out of luck unless you can wire them together and share the Telus internet that way. That would require some tweaking I'd bet

bluerinse · May 26th, 2009, 03:57 PM

Thanks Gary -- That helps a lot. I think you're right, I can have one or the other but not both on all computers.