Wireless Network Question

My wife bought me an AppleTV for Xmas. I am thinking of replacing my old G Extreme with a new N Extreme.
1) Do I really need N speed to stream movies to the living room? My issue right now is that it takes 3-5 minutes for some of the menu's to load on the AppleTV. The video's seem to play perfectly.
2) The kids use an old iMac G5 in the family room that has a wireless G card in it. It would be a pain in the butt to drag an ethernet cable in there, and I dont think the old machine is compatible with N cards. Will having the G5 on the network slow the whole network down to G even if I buy an N router?
3) Is it really necessary to spend $180 for the Extreme, or will a $45 D-Link work?

I am running my ATV on a N network. It is slow - but not 3-5 minutes (unless it hits a time out which happens every now and then.) Usually it is 10-30 seconds of wait time for anything to start playing. The key is I have one of the simultaneous dual band routers (The Apple Time Capsule) so that the N speeds stay N at 5GHz - and anything that has to connect at G speeds (like my iphone) are connected to the G/N 2.4GHz band. The problem is that 5GHz has a very limited range. I alleviated that by placing Airport Expresses around the house to rebroadcast the 5GHz signal. This has helped some.

Anyway - you don't need the Extreme but I would recommend getting a router that does simultaneous dual band - assuming you can get decent signal with the 5GHz band to your ATV. Then your G5 can bog down the 2.4GHz band on G and not affect the ATV transmission.

Realistically - the 5GHz range is not that far indoors. If there is anything, walls, appliances, a coffee cup, between the base station and where you want to pick up the signal, the 5GHz signal drops off pretty fast.

talleyrand said:

1) Do I really need N speed to stream movies to the living room? My issue right now is that it takes 3-5 minutes for some of the menu's to load on the AppleTV. The video's seem to play perfectly.

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Yes, you do. Especially if streaming from another computer to the ATV. Apple even recommends it and is why they built the ATV with N chips.

2) The kids use an old iMac G5 in the family room that has a wireless G card in it. It would be a pain in the butt to drag an ethernet cable in there, and I dont think the old machine is compatible with N cards. Will having the G5 on the network slow the whole network down to G even if I buy an N router?

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The new Airport Extremes are dual band meaning you can have things running N and B/G simultaneously on the same network. Works perfectly for me with all the MacBooks, ATV, iPhones, and my TV & Blu Ray player all on N and my Wii, printer, and a few other devices on G.

3) Is it really necessary to spend $180 for the Extreme, or will a $45 D-Link work?

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A dual band D-Link (or any other brand) will not cost you $45, it will be more. Personally I think the Airport Express is probably one of the best performing routers out there today so it may cost $30 or more extra, but it's worth it.

IvanLasston said:

Realistically - the 5GHz range is not that far indoors. If there is anything, walls, appliances, a coffee cup, between the base station and where you want to pick up the signal, the 5GHz signal drops off pretty fast.

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I'm not so sure it's that bad. I have my Airport Extreme router in the basement and am able to get a good 5ghz N signal in the second floor office for my Macbook Pro without any issue and there's a lot of stuff in between.

A lot probably also depends on the quality of the router.

schweb said:

I'm not so sure it's that bad. I have my Airport Extreme router in the basement and am able to get a good 5ghz N signal in the second floor office for my Macbook Pro without any issue and there's a lot of stuff in between.

A lot probably also depends on the quality of the router.

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I am running a Time Capsule and Airport Expresses. I was being a little pessimistic with the coffee cup - I'll admit that - but the signal does drop off significantly faster than a 2.4GHz signal. Just as a sanity check - I can still see my Airport Express in my bedroom (2nd floor) - from my basement - but the Signal is 30% to 14% noise - so it is in the red in iStumbler. It was around 40% to 14% SNR when running in the 2.4GHz band.