- Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 29 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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6 out of 6 people found this review helpful
4.0 stars
"Excellent device, poor software"
Pros: Well built, easily configured, great range and sigal
Cons: Poorly support configuration software, WDS tricky to setup
Summary: When I built my house, I decided I'd try to move to an entirely wireless network structure. Looking at various reviews and featuresets, I decided to go with an Apple AirPort Extreme. However, knowing the flaws in wireless technology and interference, I also decided I'd strategically place two repeater units, two Apple AirPort Expresses, on various levels of the house, to extend the signal and ensure I had maximum performance anywhere in the area.
Now, I pride myself on being rather skilled with computers. I've been a programmer for over 10 years. But I tell you, I pray for the novice user who wants to setup a WDS in their home using Apple's products. It took me days to get the network setup properly. Apple's own support site and provided documentation gave virtually no help on setting up the extended network with encryption, and the whole process was literally trial and error. Worse yet, the "Setup Wizard" system, which I accidentally launched twice in place of the Airport Admin application, overwrites your WDS settings and left my Express units inaccessible from the network. I had to reset them to manufacturer states each time just so I could get to them and configure them back.
That having been said, now that I have the network up and running, I'm very pleased with the performance and signal range. The WDS works without a hitch with MAC filtering, WAP2 Personal and Beaconing disabled, making for very secure and very useful wireless access. Unlike the other wifi routers I've used in the past, I've not had to manually reboot any of the units because of lock ups or malfunctions. It's been a "set it and forget it" kind of situation, and overall, I'm quite pleased.
