AirPort Express goes 802.11n

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 18 March 2008 00:40

Your IT - Home IT

As predicted, Apple has updated its AirPort Express Wi-Fi router to use the faster 802.11n draft standard.

The price remains unchanged at $US99/$A129, and the new version is immediately available.

The introduction of the upgraded AirPort Express means Apple now features 802.11n on all its base stations and computers.

"Apple is leading the way with a broad range of innovative 802.11n base stations for almost any wireless networking need," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing.

"From the small and portable AirPort Express, to AirPort Extreme for workgroups of up to 50 users and the new Time Capsule for automated backups, Apple customers now have more great ways to extend their wireless networks with 802.11n."

It appears that the AirPort Express specifications are otherwise unchanged. The Ethernet port is still 10/100M rather than the Gigabit Ethernet interface found as standard on Macintoshes, a USB print server is still built in, the number of wireless connections is still limited to 10, and the AirTunes feature for streaming music from iTunes to a pair of speakers or an audio system connected to the AirPort Express is still present.

According to Apple, 802.11n can deliver up to five times the performance and up to twice the range of its 802.11g hardware.