While not strictly a piece about PCs vs Macs, it does involve a similar struggle with networking gear and Apple compared to other brands. It might also be of interest for those switching to 5GHz WiFi or those having similar problems to mine with their current WiFi network. 

Some many months ago I got tired with my WiFi dropping connection every now and then or having to restart one of the routers every couple of days. Well, actually I grew tired of it a long time ago and over the past 3 years or so I was replacing a lot of network hardware. It is important to note that all the problems were with the WiFi network. The wired network provided by the very same devices worked like a charm, no matter what brand. When the WiFi went down or didn’t allow devices to connect or dropped devices randomly, the wired network still worked like a charm.

What really happened those months ago was me moving to a new place and realizing how much network equipment I have amassed over the past 2 years. More than a dozen network devices such as routers, switches or access points from various brands like Netgear, Cisco/Linksys, D-Link or TP-Link. Before I moved to the new place, my network situation has improved in the end. But it hasn’t really changed as the same problems were still plaguing me, just by far not that often.

To some extend the improvement came from the new network hardware, but to be quite honest with myself, I have to admit that some of the improvement also came from just not connecting so many devices via WiFi as I might have wanted to.

The thing I have noticed over the years is that the more devices I connected via WiFi and especially the more of those devices worked with different standards (b/g/n), the more frequent the problems were. So I just stopped doing that whenever viable and connected as much via Ethernet cables as possible – I know, that’s one hell of a solution to a problem…

I tried a lot of things over these 3+ years like getting rid of all the cheap hardware replacing it with better, top of the line SOHO models and in the last stage having all network equipment from one brand. First it was D-Link and then TP-Link.  I switched from D-Link to TP-Link because the later was easily available to me and also supported the odd 3G modem I had as backup for my regular internet connection. Other than that, I noticed that the TP-Link routers had slightly better WiFi range than their D-Link counterparts, at least at my place. However, WiFi range wasn’t of concern to me in the old place. It was in the new place though.

The old place of mine was your typical flat. The new one however is a flat with two levels, with the large living and working area, kitchen and one bath downstairs and bedrooms and another bath upstairs. Downstairs and upstairs are connected by a fancy spiral stairs construction almost in the middle of the area downstairs. It’s great, looks really nice, but the way it is built there is just no way to connect everything with cables without some serious construction work or having network cables destroy the nice look of the place.

This means that for me WiFi now went from being a means of connecting phones and tablets to something I have to use also for some of the notebooks and possibly even a desktop or two. For me, that is a scary thought, considering my WiFi troubles and the fact that I’m a firm believer in network cables. And to make things worse, there were trice as many WiFi networks in my vicinity than in the old place.

To give you a better understanding of what that means: in the old place, my main router’s WiFi signal quality wouldn’t drop below ‘good’ at any spot in any room. Measuring with WiFi Explorer that means that at the worst spot I had well above 50% signal strength where the signal had to go through 2 walls.

In the new place, the same router’s WiFi had a ‘poor’ connection at barely above 50% mere 8 meters away without any obstacles such as walls in the way.

The WiFi connection upstairs was so bad, I would be better off using post pigeons for sending data. I kid you not, I tried to stream an episode of a TV show in SD and it wouldn’t work. Copying a 1GB file took I don’t know how long, but I managed to get downstairs, make coffee, get out on the balcony, smoke a cigarette and get back up upstairs only to see that the copying process barely passed the 1/3 mark. And just to top the misery off, various of my devices dropped WiFi multiple times during the first day.

You see, at the old place when a mobile device could not connect to the WiFi until I restarted a router wouldn’t really have been a critical thing. It could still connect to the other router and get its weaker, but still solid WiFi signal as I had WiFi enabled on two routers. And even if that failed, all my mobiles have extensive data plans and I could have just let them run on 3G, because nothing I did with them most of the time really required to be hooked up to my network. It was just me being a bit anal about it and wanting my stuff to work as intended.

In the new place however the situation changed drastically when some of our notebooks or even a desktop or two would have to work on WiFi. I just can’t imagine to have my notebook drop its WiFi connection while working away from my desk.

I needed to solve the problem and solve it properly. Shouldn’t be much of a problem for a guy with enough decent, quite recent networking gear to network a not so small office, right? Guess again.

The two strongest routers when it comes to WiFi signal strength at my disposal were D-Link’s DIR-655 and TP-Link’s TL-WR1043ND. Both are 3 antenna designs, but the TP-Link came with modified, better antennas and in the old place it provided a stronger signal than the D-Link. It was no different in the new place, except that the TP-Link’s advantage was even bigger. Still, the signal strength I mentioned earlier is the one from the TP-Link and that after I chose the least occupied channel. Mind you, least occupied channel is a very relative, if not meaningless term in this case, as in this vicinity there are more than 30 WiFi networks and the interference is excessive no matter which channel you use.

Dual band with two WiFi networks on separate bands (one on 2.4 GHz for the older devices and one on the 5 GHz band for the devices that really matter) and both networks extended with 1 or 2 access points on each floor looked like a good solution to approach the problem. WiFi Explorer and iStumbler have shown that I am surrounded by a metric ton of WiFi networks, but all of them operate on the 2.4 GHz band. There was not a single WiFi network working on the 5 GHz band.

Since dual band routers costs a lot more than 2.4 GHz ones here and there is not a single major internet provider in the country that provides a dual band router with their internet connection, that doesn’t come as a surprise. Hell, 5 GHz WiFi is such a rarity here, most of my friends who are IT professionals or software engineers don’t even think for 1 second about 5 GHz when you mention WiFi to them. They are hardwired to think WiFi = 2.4 GHz. They know it exists, but they don’t think about it until you point it out.

I myself never bothered with dual band WiFi before either, because I had no need for it. I didn’t need the increased speed, because I only connected mobiles or netbooks via WiFi and the later ones I actually started to connect via Ethernet more often than not. Until then, I haven’t connected a notebook or netbook via Ethernet for years.

With the WiFi trouble at the new place, my thoughts went to 5 GHz WiFi right away to get the hell out of the overcrowded 2.4 GHz band where most WiFi devices and networks are. It’s also the spectrum where Bluetooth, microwave ovens and lots of cordless phones and RC controlled toys operate on… you get the idea about how much interference I’m talking about, right?

However, 5GHz WiFi has one problem that I knew I would be facing: it has less WiFi range than 2.4GHz, at least in urban and in-house environments. 5 GHz waves just aren’t that good at penetrating obstacles such as walls, ceilings, doors or furniture for that matter. Still, at that point anything would be an improvement over the sorry state of my WiFi situation.

Going 5 GHz did pose another problem: I had no 5 GHz or dual band routers. 2.4 GHz and wired connection I had nicely covered, but not a single piece of my network equipment was capable of running on 5 GHz. The old stuff because 5 GHz wasn’t really around back then and the new stuff because I haven’t bothered with dual band as I didn’t need it. Another scary thought hit me a second later: how many of my computers are even capable to connect to a 5GHz WiFi if I had one?

Last, but not least, there is still the issue of the WiFi problems that plagued me in the old place. Beside solving the 5 GHz issue, I also had to eliminate the WiFi drops and router restarts. And I knew the later ones would be a more frequent occurrence considering how many devices I now needed to connect via WiFi.

When it comes to computers capable of 5GHz WiFi, the situation turned out to be not bad after all. Our notebooks are MacBooks Pro and Air and they do 5 GHz. None of the PC desktops are capable of 5 GHz, but that’s no surprise since they just don’t have WiFi at all. I haven’t really thought about earlier, since WiFi on desktop is still to date close to non-existent. I would have them connected via gigabit Ethernet downstairs and upstairs we would go with our Mac Minis since they handle 5 GHz WiFi and are pretty silent (most of the time) which the PCs are not.

Our netbooks however didn’t do 5 GHz and what’s worse, we were still using the Samsung ones occasionally. Neither did our iPhones nor the tablet, so the 2.4 GHz band would still be used extensively.

That left me with the WiFi network itself. I had a quick look at the usual suspects (read network hardware manufacturers) and they all offered a couple of dual band routers. A phone call to my favorite hardware store painted a bleaker picture: they could order any of them for me and I could collect them in 2-3 days, but if they don’t have hardware there already, it would gets tricky with returning hardware they had to order on my request. Then there was another problem: have you noticed how most reviews of routers on the net and in printed media are useless when it comes to providing actually relevant information as how they perform, especially when it comes to dual band? Half the stuff I have been reading about the routers I looked at from TP Link, D-Link and Netgear didn’t even mention if the stuff they wrote was for the 2.4 or the 5GHz band. So basically I might have as well flipped a coin or just go by the feature set and the looks of those devices.

Which actually brought up another interesting issue. Having lived in the new place for a couple of days already I had time to get the lay of the land, the networks around me, the signal strength in various configurations etc. I also had time to establish the best spots for the routers. One was downstairs at my desk and the other by the dining table.

So far so good, but there was one problem. I am as geeky as the next guy, but putting a router at the dinning table is too much even for me.  Let’s face it: proper routers with good signal strength and lots of nice features aren’t exactly lookers. Some look nicer than others (i.e. the more expensive Asus dual band gigabit routers or TP-Link’s N750), but at the end of the day they are just some boxes with questionable design, shitloads of blinking lights and in most cases 3 ugly antennas sticking out (Netgear’s R6200/6300 weren’t available at that time yet).

The smaller ones that were smooth with lights hidden away and not looking like much, especially not like a piece of network equipment, were usually simply too weak or lacked important features or in most cases both.

Constructing some enclosure that would hide the “ugly” ones without affecting thermals and especially signal strength would be another approach, but quite frankly I couldn’t be bothered. I know from past experience that doing it right is something that gets complicated, time consuming and turns out to me just another major headache very quick.

At this point I started to look at Apple’s network devices such as the Airport Extreme. They don’t look like much which is a good thing and they don’t have batteries of blinking lights or antennas sticking out everywhere. However, when I see a router without antennas, I get worried about the signal strength, because from my not so tiny experience with various home and SOHO routers there was always one common thing: no antennas = shitty signal strength a room or two away. Still, the Airports had one thing going for them: they were from Apple. Wouldn’t mean a thing to me a year earlier, but since then I got a MacBook Air and we liked it and its operating system so much that my girlfriend got a MacBook Pro and we got a couple of Mac Minis since then and were converting pretty much everything to Macs by that time.

With that pleasant experience in mind I decided to give Apple a chance and read up on how their network devices perform.

The first hint was the name: Airport Extreme. I mean using ‘extreme’ in a product’s name would fit pretty much every hardware vendor in the world, just not Apple. But after a couple of hours reading it was pretty clear to me that these routers are indeed serious gear that have a chance to perform very nicely. They are also simultaneous dual band, meaning they can run 2.4 and 5 GHz WiFi networks at the same time. A minor argument for me, since I already had more than enough 2.4 GHz routers, but if you start fresh or have cheap hardware, that’s something to take into account. The reason I mention it is because, as so often, the Apple stuff comes with a higher price tag. Like twice the price of a comparable router from D-Link or such.

Since most of our furniture downstairs is white the looks of the Airport Extreme and its color were sufficient for me to justify its price – provided it would offer satisfying performance on the technical sides of things.

I didn’t care about the ease of use, because when you do your networks for 2 decades you already went through so much crap when it comes to how to configure that stuff, it doesn’t matter any more if it’s a bit nicer or not. For someone who isn’t into networks and doesn’t even know the terminology, the ease of configuration on Apple routers is a serious advantage. Actually it solves one of my problems: whenever some of my not so tech-savvy friends call me about their WiFi networks, from now on I will tell them to get an Apple router and be done with it. If they can’t configure that one, they shouldn’t use computers in the first place – yes, Airports are that easy to set up.

Airport Extreme it is. I decided to order one and if it really works out that nicely, then I would get another one. When it arrived I first hooked it up at my desk and then tried it at the dinning table. I will spare you the details about configuring it using Apple’s Airport Utility, because there are more than enough well made guides for that on the net. I will however mention one important bit: OS X Mountain Lion comes with a new version of Airport Utility, the app you use to configure Airport routers. There is however an older one: Airport Utility 5.6 that you might want if you intend to tinker around with the router and have a look at all available settings. Most people won’t need it, but when you know your way around networking a bit, you are also likely to know the bad feeling one has if you don’t see all the options no matter if you need them or not.

It has been a while now since I switched my networking gear to Apple and despite the price, it is something I can only recommend. In the meantime I sold the Airport Extreme and bought a 4^th generation Time Capsule that already has an Airport Extreme built in. However, the signal strength dropped by 2-3% compared to the Airport Extreme, but that’s rather negligible. Both the Airport Extreme before and the Time Capsule now perform admirable. As a matter of fact, they both went on my desk and to my surprise I did not need a second router for the 5 GHz band.

While the 5 GHz signal upstairs is only around 40% when connecting directly to the Time Capsule, the network speed is still a lot better than with 2.4 GHz at around 85%. I would have not imagined that. I got rid of all the other network devices except a simple TP-Link 4 port switch to have some of the desktop Macs and PC wired downstairs via Ethernet (as the Aiport Extreme/Time Capsule only has 3 LAN ports) and the TP-Link  TP-MR3420 that I use to connect my USB 3G modem into for a backup internet connection. WiFi on the MR3420 is disabled though, but it still occasionally causes trouble and needs a restart (like once every two weeks).

After all the trouble I went through with my collection of network devices, I still can’t believe that a single router is able to run my entire WiFi network on all its own and does so without external antennas.

For a couple of weeks my entire network was reduced to the Time Capsule, the MR3420 and the 4 port Gigabit switch and I had no trouble getting with my WiFi no matter what room I was in.

On 5 GHz the speed goes from around 22 MB/s while at my desk down to even 7 MB/s in the furthest possible spot. Upstairs where we have another desktop the speed is 13 MB/s. That’s not bad for WiFi considering these are real world numbers measured based on copying a mix of small (from 10MB upwards) and large files (up to 4GB).

While satisfied with my WiFi’s performance on 5 GHz, the 2.4 GHz performance was still bad. It was better than expected, but in some remote areas of the rooms upstairs very troublesome nonetheless. I solved the problem by supplementing the 2.4 GHz band with an Apple Airport Express router that is located upstairs and extends the Time Capsule’s WiFi network.

I went for the discontinued model that plugs directly into the power outlet. I like that design as I don’t need to find a place to put the router on.

These older ones, while dual band, can’t do both bands simultaneously, unlike the Airport Extreme or Time Capsule or the new Airport Express introduced in 2012. You have to select the band or rather, which is the only downside I discovered, the network you want them to expand. By default they choose the stronger signal which in my case was 5 GHz. I however needed to expand the 2.4 GHz band as it was too weak upstairs. The workaround is to use a different network name for 5 GHz on the Time Capsule/Airport Extreme and then set the Airport Express to extend the 2.4 GHz network. Don’t worry, all your computers and devices will still act like they are on the same network.

Airport Express, both old and new, comes with another nice touch that got me intrigued and I learned to appreciate with time: AirPlay. You can plug your speakers into the router and stream audio from any device connected to your WiFi. The audio jack is analog and optical, like so often found on Apple devices.

After such a long time I had finally no trouble with my WiFi despite having more devices connected to it then ever before and the number is still growing. I don’t know what Apple does differently in their routers than D-Link, TP-Link and others, but it works. I did at some point hook up my TP-Link WR1043ND to test something and as expected it was bad. While on Saturday its WiFi performed properly and the 2.4 GHz signal was around 20% stronger than the Time Capsule’s, it oddly enough wasn’t reflected by actual transfer speeds over the network. The difference was within the error margin. On Sunday the trouble started though and I had to reset it twice to get its WiFi going. Since we use those routers at the office too, I switched one on Monday and brought it home just to be sure mine didn’t go bad. It was the same: by Monday late evening the phones couldn’t connect to the WiFi and the router needed a restart.

If someone asks me today what network brand to use at home, my answer is pretty obvious, despite the fact that Apple’s Airport routers are quite pricy. The tiny Airport Express costs $99 while the Airport Extreme is $179. The 2TB Time Capsule is a staggering $299. But you know what? When I consider how much I have spent on cheaper routers over the past 2-3 years (that didn’t even worked properly), even the $299 looks almost like a bargain.

Mind you, when it comes to routers it’s not all nice and shinny in Appleland. There is no denying that other brands offer more features, more variety, more ports etc. Apple does not make the best routers out there, not by far. However, for a SOHO environment in my experience they offer all you need and they do work reliably and that triumphs every other feature in existence. Maybe one day I will actually figure out why they work so well while others don’t, but for now I’m just glad they do.