I have been running a Linksys WRT150N router at home for a couple of months. This has been a great router. It is fast and I am able to go next door and have full access to my network. The only issue I have is that if I put my Macbook in sleep mode, on wake I can not get online. I have to reboot the machine.I am tired that Apple has not given me an update to fix this issue. (I have done quite a bit to get around this issue). I have decided that I will just go ahead and bite the bullet, and get myself an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. I did not want to go this route, as I already had a perfectly good new router. I also have an internet provider that requires Mac Address Cloning, and I do not want to go through all of the hoops of getting this changed.

I went to the store and purchased my new Airport Extreme Base Station. I plugged it into my network, and loaded the software that lets me program it. I then notice that I can either run it as a router or as a Bridge. Since I was going to run this behind my Linksys router, and decided that Bridge Mode would be a better fit for me. This lets me be able to access everything on my network, no matter what wireless or wired device I am plugged into. I created a new second wireless network with a different name. I set it up for encryption.

Everything is working perfect. I test my bandwidth with Speakeasy and was getting my full 10 meg up and 10 meg down connection to the network. Perfect, it works better than I though it would. There were no slow downs due to going through two routers. I am now able to put my Macbook to sleep, and on wake I can get only again. It makes me feel like I have my Macbook again. My IMac, 2 Dells, and Iphone are also connecting with no problems. My wired machines are talking to each other via the gig connection, which is an improvement over my 100 Meg connection before.

I have tested both of my wireless networks using IStumbler on my Macbook, and the Airport Extreme is getting a stronger signal strength than my Linksys. This suprised me as the Linksys has two visible antennas while the Airport Extreme’s antenna is built in. The Apple Airport Extreme is not perfect. If they included Mac Cloning, I could ditch my Linksys all together. I have yet hooked it up via USB to a hard drive or printer. I may take an old inkjet and give it network access.

If you do not have to worry about Mac Cloning, I would highly recommend this router. I just works, and is a snap to setup. I also like the fact that the power cord is a lot longer on the Airport Extreme compared to my Linksys.