The AirPort Extreme is a residential gateway combining the functions of a router, network switch, wireless access point and NAS as well as varied other functions, and one of Apple's former AirPort products. The latest model, the 6th generation, supports 802.11ac networking in addition to older standards. Versions of the same system with a built-in network-accessible hard drive are known as the AirPort Time Capsule.
Apple discontinued developing its lineup of wireless routers in 2016, but as of 2023[update] continues limited hardware and software support.[1]
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Apple Airport Extreme for cheap wireless!
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Today were going to talk about the old airport extreme base station. even though these were manufactured starting in 2003 they are still very capable devices and can be bought used for $20 or less. I bought this one on eBay for $17 with free shipping. Now, my home network is more sophisticated than many businesses. and my primary router and wireless access point is an Apple Airport Express. Its a very nice little device that costed me around $99. the trouble is, I need more coverage of the other side of my home. So i bought this older model to help extend range. one of the fascinating things about these things is that if you take them apart you'll discover there's a actual apple airport extreme card inside. this is the same car that was used by the iBook and Powerbook G4 systems that were being produced at that time. these little metal pieces here or actually the dual antennas. let's talk about the specifications this model supports wireless B and G, which means it supports speeds up to 54Mbit/sec. which is plenty for surfing the web and is even several times faster than my cable mode. so i don't see the need for anything faster. it supports WDS wireless distribution system which means they could actually work as repeater to extend the range of your wireless network without actually being connected to an ethernet cable It can support up to 50 wireless devices at once. And it can also work as a router for your internet connection either wired or wireless. some models also support power over ethernet so they can be powered directly from a hub or switch. let's go over the ports on the back The first port on the left is for an external antenna. this is the reset button if you buy one of these used like I did, you'll need to perform a factory reset by holding this button down for thirty seconds on power up. this first ethernet port is the WAN port. If you were going to use this as a router, this is where you would connect your cable modem or DSL modem. The next port is your LAN port. This is where you would connect to a hub or switch. believe it or not this is a built-in dial-up modem fairly obsolete for today, I doubt anyone will be using this and this is a usb port where you can attach a printer and at last this is the power port. Speaking of, if you buy one of these on ebay be sure to check that it includes a power adapter. I've seen a lot of these for sale without it which is pretty useless I should also mention that if you have a newer mac, the airport utility will recognize this device but it will not allow you to configure it you'll need to download the airport utility version5.6 in order configure it. So I'm going to say this is a rare instance where a piece of technology like this despite being over ten years old is still just as useful today as it was when it was manufactured back in 2003. In fact, I can take that one step further and say it's probably more useful today than it was in 2003 because there are a lot more wireless devices available now than there were back then. and it seems to work with them all. I have used this with iPads, iPhones, iPods, MacBooks and uh... even some PC laptops and it works just fine with everything. so to summarize, this is a very very inexpensive wireless base station can buy for less than $20 that i dare say is better built than of the modern ones are today by third party manufacturers, So I would highly recommend it, even as your only access point. it's also worth mentioning that there also exist something called an airport graphite which looks very similar to this but it's made several years earlier and uh... i would not advise purchasing it because it only supports wireless B and is much more difficult to configure requiring even more obsolete software. so just make sure it's white in color and you should be good
History
The first AirPort Extreme was announced at the MacWorld expo in San Francisco on January 7, 2003.[2] It featured 802.11g wireless technology for the first time in an AirPort base station.
The name "AirPort Extreme" originally referred to any one of Apple's AirPort products that implemented the (then) newly introduced 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, differentiating it from earlier devices that ran the slower 802.11a and b standards. At that time (circa 2003) the gateway part of this lineup was known as the AirPort Extreme Base Station. With the addition of the even faster Draft-N standards in early 2009 the naming of "Base Station" was dropped, and was renamed to AirPort Extreme. Several minor upgrades followed with the wireless-N models, mostly to change antenna and wireless output power. In 2013, a major upgrade changed the physical structure of the device, added 802.11ac support, and added more antennas.
The AirPort Extreme has gone through three distinct physical forms. The earliest models had a similar plastic housing to the original AirPort Base Station, in a round "flying saucer" shape. From 2007 to 2013, the devices took on a flat rounded rectangle shape, similar in layout and size to the Mac mini or early models of the Apple TV. The 2013 model had a more vertical form, taller than it was wide.
Discontinuation
In approximately 2016, Apple disbanded the wireless router team that developed the AirPort Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme router.[3] In 2018, Apple formally discontinued both products, exiting the router market.[4] Bloomberg News noted that "Apple rarely discontinues product categories"[4] and that its decision to leave the business was "a boon for other wireless router makers."[3]
Features
Overview
- Fully featured 802.11ac Wi-Fi base station
- Sleep Proxy Service[5]
- 4 Ethernet ports (3 LAN ports, 1 WAN port) — all ports are gigabit Ethernet on newer versions
- USB 2.0 interface for disk and printer sharing
- Built-in file server (AFP and SMB)
- Runs VxWorks Operating System by WindRiver or a customized version of NetBSD.[6]
AirPort Disk
The AirPort Disk feature allows users to plug a USB hard drive into the AirPort Extreme for use as a network-attached storage (NAS) device for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows clients.[7] Users may also connect a USB hub and printer. The performance of USB hard drives attached to an AirPort Extreme is slower than if the drive were connected directly to a computer. This is due to the processor speed on the AirPort Extreme. Depending on the setup and types of reads and writes, performance ranges from 0.5 to 17.5 MB/s for writing and 1.9 to 25.6 MB/s for reading.[8] Performance for the same disk connected directly to a computer would be 6.6 to 31.6 MB/s for writing and 7.1 to 37.2 MB/s for reading. NTFS-formatted drives are not supported.
Models by generation
Original generation (2003)
The original AirPort Extreme Base Station in 2003 was so named because of its support for the 802.11g standard of the day, as well as for its ability to serve up to 50 Macs or PCs simultaneously.[9] One feature found in most models of this generation was an internal 56K dial-up modem, allowing homes that lacked a broadband connection to enjoy wireless connectivity, albeit at dial-up speeds.[10] It was the last generation to retain the "flying saucer" form factor. Later generations would adopt the short, rounded-square form factor that would be seen until 2013.
1st generation
On January 9, 2007 the AirPort Extreme began shipping, with support for 802.11n draft specification, and built-in wireless print and storage server.
2nd generation
On March 19, 2008, Apple released a firmware update for both models of the AirPort Extreme that, according to third-party reports, allowed AirPort Disks to be used in conjunction with Time Machine, similar to the functionality provided by AirPort Time Capsule.[11][12]
3rd generation
On March 3, 2009, Apple unveiled a new AirPort Extreme with simultaneous dual-band 802.11 Draft-N radios. This allowed full 802.11 Draft-N 2x2 communication in both 802.11 Draft-N bands at the same time.
4th generation
On October 20, 2009, Apple unveiled an updated AirPort Extreme with antenna improvements.
5th generation
On June 21, 2011, Apple unveiled an updated AirPort Extreme, referred to as AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Generation).
The detailed table of output power comparison between the 4th generation model MC340LL/A and the 5th generation model MD031LL/A can be seen below:[13][14]
Frequency range (MHz) Mode AirPort Extreme model Output power (dBm) Output power (mW) Comparison (percent) Difference (percent) 2412–2462 802.11b 4th generation 24.57 286.42 100 -10.3 5th generation 24.10 257.04 89.7 802.11g 4th generation 21.56 143.22 100 +114.8 5th generation 24.88 307.61 214.8 802.11n HT20 4th generation 21.17 130.92 100 +96.8 5th generation 24.11 257.63 196.8 5745–5825 802.11a 4th generation 23.07 202.77 100 +61.1 5th generation 25.14 326.59 161.1 5745–5805 802.11n HT20 4th generation 22.17 164.82 100 +104.6 5th generation 25.28 337.29 204.6 5755–5795 802.11n HT40 4th generation 21.44 139.32 100 +181.8 5th generation 25.94 392.64 281.8
Note: A 3dB increase is equivalent to a doubling of power output.
6th generation
On June 10, 2013, Apple unveiled an updated AirPort Extreme, referred to as AirPort Extreme 802.11ac (6th Generation). The 6th generation AirPort Extreme (and 5th generation AirPort Time Capsule) featured three-stream 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology with a maximum data rate of 1.3Gbit/s, which is nearly three times faster than 802.11n. Time Machine was now supported using an external USB hard drive connected to AirPort Extreme (802.11ac model only).[15]
Comparison chart
| Approx. release date | Consumer nickname | AirPort Extreme | Model | Wireless standard | Gigabit Ethernet | Guest network[16] | Radio type | MIMO | IPv6 router mode*** | Time-Machine Backup**** | CPU | RAM | FLASH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 7, 2003 | Original/round | M8799LL/A | A1034 | 802.11b/g | No | No | Single band 2.4 GHz |
No | No | No | |||
| January 9, 2007 | 1st generation | MA073LL/A | A1143 | 802.11a/b/g/n* | No | No | Dual band 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz |
3×3:2 | No | No | Marvell 1850 step A0 (Feroceon core) [88F5281 Rev 4] | 64 MB | 16 MB |
| August 7, 2007 | 2nd generation | MB053LL/A | Yes | No | 3×3:2 | No | No | ||||||
| March 3, 2009 | 3rd generation | MB763LL/A | A1301 | Yes | Yes | Dual band (simultaneous) 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz |
2×2:2 (in each band) | No | No | ||||
| October 20, 2009 | 4th generation | MC340AM/A | A1354 |
802.11a/b/g/n | Yes | Yes | 3×3:3 (in each band) | Yes, but not over PPPoE | Yes, with latest software | ||||
| June 21, 2011 | 5th generation | MD031LL/A | A1408 | Yes | Yes | Yes, but not over PPPoE | Yes, with latest software | ARM926E-S rev 1 (ARM9E-S core) | 128 MB | 16 MB | |||
| June 10, 2013 | 6th generation | ME918LL/A | A1521 | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac** | Yes | Yes | Yes, but not over PPPoE | Yes | BCM53019 (dual Cortex-A9) | 512 MB | 32 MB |
*802.11n draft-specification support in 1st- to 3rd-generation models.
**802.11ac draft-specification support in 6th-generation model.
***All models support IPv6 tunnel mode.
****Supported by Apple.[15]
Discontinuation and support
According to a Bloomberg report on November 21, 2016, "Apple Inc. has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers, another move to try to sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue, according to people familiar with the matter."[3]
In an April 2018 statement to 9to5Mac,[17] Apple announced the discontinuation of its AirPort line, effectively leaving the consumer router market. Apple continued supporting the AirPort Extreme.[1][18]
See also
Notes
- ^ a b "Vintage and obsolete products". Apple. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
- ^ "Apple Delivers AirPort Extreme 802.11g Wireless Networking". January 7, 2003.
- ^ a b c Gurman, Mark (November 23, 2016). "Apple Abandons Development of Wireless Routers". Bloomberg News. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
- ^ a b Gurman, Mark (April 27, 2018). "Apple Officially Discontinues Its AirPort Wireless Routers". Bloomberg News. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
- ^ "Mac OS X v10.6: About Wake on Demand (Apple Article HT3774)". Apple. August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
Setting up Wake on Demand", "Setting up a Bonjour Sleep Proxy
- ^ "AirPort Extreme: Apple Breaks 90 Mbps". wifinetnews.com. Archived from the original on February 6, 2010. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
- ^ "AirPort Extreme – Sharing". Apple Inc. Archived from the original on April 2, 2013.
- ^ Klug, Brian. "Airport Extreme (5th Gen) and Time Capsule (4th Gen) Review – Faster WiFi". Airport Extreme (5th Gen) and Time Capsule (4th Gen) Review. AnandTech. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
- ^ "AirPort Extreme". Apple.com. Archived from the original on June 8, 2004.
- ^ "AirPort Extreme – Technical Specifications". Apple.com. Archived from the original on June 8, 2004.
- ^ Patel, N. (March 19, 2008). "Time Machine now works with AirPort Extreme's AirDisk feature". Engadget.com. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
- ^ Dalrymple, Jim (March 19, 2008). "Update allows Time Machine backups on AirPort Extreme". Macworld. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
- ^ Test Report – Previous version Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
- ^ Test Report – Current version Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
- ^ a b "Backup disks you can use with Time Machine". Apple Inc. January 29, 2021.
- ^ "Set up a guest network in AirPort Utility on Mac". Apple Inc.
- ^ Hall, Zac (April 26, 2018). "Apple officially discontinues AirPort router line, no plans for future hardware". 9to5Mac. Retrieved October 6, 2010.
- ^ "Update the firmware on your AirPort base station". Apple Support. June 21, 2019. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
This page was last edited on 19 October 2023, at 07:58