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Old 2012-01-26, 16:32   Link #16
Ledgem
Love Yourself
 
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 38
It's been a few days now, so brief update: I'm currently running with a 5th generation Apple Airport Extreme, and it's fantastic. Some people decry its lack of a web-based interface, and while it's bad news for Linux users, being able to administrate the router from a program feels nicer. Even better, I can make quick adjustments to the network from the iOS app version of that program.

Stability-wise, this router is doing well and actually saved me. I recently put my modem-router provided by the ISP into "bridge" mode, which kills the router functionality entirely (can't even access it via web browser - need to do a factory reset to take it out of that mode). The goal was to see if I could cut down on the number of times that the modem had to be rebooted, and to make opening ports easier. It worked, but apparently putting my previous router into PPPoE connectivity mode added some strain, because I couldn't do video conferencing for more than 5-10 minutes before the router would freeze up and need its power cord pulled. The Airport Extreme has handled hours of video conferencing and some light torrenting without any issues.

Lack of UPnP is not an issue. The programs that would have needed it also support NAT-PMP. I read up on NAT-PMP a bit, and it seems like it's a cleaner version of UPnP, which is nice...

I haven't tried the disk or printer sharing feature yet, but I'll get to that eventually. Having dual band networks running simultaneously is nice. I also appreciate that a "guest network" can be established very quickly, without taking down or modifying any of your regular networks. My intended use for that is for my Nintendo DS, which only supports WEP encryption; previously, I would have to change my entire network configuration to support WEP or remove encryption entirely. Now, when I want to take it online I can simply enable the guest network, and then shut the network off when I'm done. Nice and easy!

Time will tell how stable it is. I have high expectations.

On another note, rumor has it that Apple will be releasing 802.11ac routers (the successor to 802.11n) later this year. Sigh, just when I'd gotten my most-used network components up to 802.11n...
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