A Visit to the Apple Store
marc:
I’ll be interested see reviews of the new Apple AirPort Extreme Base Station. (The Apple Store Short Pump doesn’t have any yet.) Apple claims:
Improvements in antenna design give you up to 50 percent better Wi-Fi performance and up to 25 percent better range than with the previous-generation AirPort Extreme Base Station.I’m not geeky enough to understand all the technology behind Wi-Fi. We have the dual-antenna AirPort Extreme Base Station that was the current model until this new one was announced. It’s very peppy for both LAN and and Internet stuff. I have a hard time understanding how the new device gets 50 percent better performance on the same 802.11n standard. If that’s true, wow. I know it has something to do with triple antennas (antennae?), but I still don’t really get it. Maybe my geekier friends will explain.
The big difference is that it has three antennas and radios instead of two, and (like the two-antenna version) can use them all simultaneously.
WiFi has 14 “channels” that APs can broadcast on, but it’s more like 14 different sliding-windows over a three-channel-wide space — there’s only enough space in the band for three channels (1, 7, and 14) without any overlapping. Usually, overlapping another channel isn’t a problem, but the interference and radio congestion does reduce performance and speed.
Triple-radio APs can effectively broadcast simultaneously over the entire block of WiFi frequencies in parallel. Not only does this increase potential throughput, but it increases the likelihood that client devices at long ranges will be able to pick up at least one of the signals. It’s great if you’re the only one using WiFi in the area. It’s not so great otherwise.
