Apple brings Airport Base Station, Time Capsule into line with dual-band Macs

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 04 March 2009 05:33

Opinion and Analysis

Recent Macs are dual-band (2.4 and 5 GHz) 802.11n, but you might not have noticed if you were using an Apple router. Now the company has brought its AirPort Extreme Base Station and Time Capsule into line.

The advantage of 5 GHz support in Wi-Fi products is that the spectrum is less cluttered, giving the potential for greater range and throughput.

Furthermore, dual-band support means you can effectively run two networks, for example one for everyday purposes while time-critical traffic such as media streaming is kept separate.

Along with the revamped Mac mini, iMac and Power Mac, Apple has announced a refresh for the AirPort Extreme 802.11n Wi-Fi Base Station and Time Capsule, both with dual-band support.

The AirPort Extreme Base Station is a Wi-Fi/Ethernet router, while Time Capsule adds a networked hard drive intended primarily for Time Machine backups.

Apple describes the new Guest Network feature (which makes it possible to provide visitors with Internet-only access, keeping them away from the rest of your WLAN) as "innovative", but it is not the first company to add this useful capability to wireless routers.

The AirPort Extreme costs $A279/$US179.

The Time Capsule is available in two models. The 500G configuration is $A479/$US299, and the 1T version costs $A799/$US499.

Given the current exchange rate and allowing for taxes, these Australian prices represent a smaller mark-up than usual.

Apple also announced a refresh of its entire desktop line: the Mac mini, iMac and Mac Pro.