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A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar David Fleetwood
Does anyone have any views on suitable modems to link to an A E Base Station that i am planning to buy. Our existing router/modem, Netgear DG834GT, seems to struggle with the number of devices linked to it, especially wirelessly when devices just won't connect.
The reviews of the A E Base Station generally say it is excellent although expensive, but sometimes you get what you pay for! A Draytek Vigor 120 modem gets good reviews but at around £55 it's pretty expensive and some people say a cheap one eg TP Link TD 8817 at about £15 are just as good. Any views or comments would be welcome.

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar Mick Burrell
Just turn off wireless on the 834GT and use that - connect it to the base station by ethernet. . I have a much older 834 doing just that.

Having said that, I'm surprised it can't cope as it is. Are you sure the non connection is down to the 834?

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar Eleanor Spenceley
I agree with Mick's advice. This is exactly the setup I have had here and experienced no issues.

In fact, I go a little further and split the network up and allow devices supporting the N standard/ 5Ghz bands to work on a 'different' network than devices only able to support the G standard/ 2.4 bands.

(Mind you the latest Airport Extreme basestations support dual bands so turning off the Wireless on the 834G is probably best).

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar David Fleetwood
Thanks Mick and Martin for your comments - I will try your suggested set up.
The sort of issues we get at the moment are the iPad or MacBook just not picking up the wireless network, if you then leave them for a while they may then connect or sometimes it's necessary to do a re-start on the device and occasionally when all else fails restart the router. Also we use eprint and sometimes it works fine other times it says the printer is not connected - when it is!

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar Derek Wright
Have you checked to see that you are not getting interference from another network that is on the same channel. I use WiFI Explorer to display what other WiFi channels are in use so that I can ensure that my network is not interfering with my network.

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar Mick Burrell
And it's not a "too far from the router" issue? At home, my router is at the other end of the house. Usually, when in my study, my phone picks up the wireless with no trouble but sometimes I have to walk into the room with the router, wait till it's picked it up and then walk back. It never drops it. And it doesn't happen often enough for me to "fix" it. But it does support my "always connect by cable if you can".

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar David Fleetwood
Thanks for these further thoughts. I hadn't come across WiFi Explorer before but it looks interesting and worth a couple of £'s on the App store. There are several neighbours with WiFi networks but again I hadn't thought that there might be any conflicts with these. I will most likely go for a AE Base station and see how that goes switching off wireless on the router/modem.

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar David Fleetwood
Just to finish off the story with this post. I bought an AE Base Station and switched off the wireless signal from the Netgear router/modem. Setting up the Base Station was a doddle - it did virtually everything automatically. Now I have a stronger signal in various parts of the house and so far it has been very stable and I reckon faster as well, so thanks for all the advice.

Re: A good modem for an Airport Extreme Base Station?

Avatar Mick Burrell
And if you have any more issues, an Airport Express (for another £80!) can extend the wireless network set up by the Extreme by connecting to it either by ethernet (probably inconvenient) or wirelessly.
 
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