How AirPort Is Used

Because AirPort is versatile, you can use it in several ways.

AirPort machines can talk directly to one another, even without a base station, which permits sharing of files and other resources on those machines through a home network without wires (Figure 16.4a). In many cases, however, you’ll simply enable wireless Internet access for a single home machine with AirPort (Figure 16.4b).

 

 

Figure 16.4a Using AirPort for wireless sharing between Macs, with no need for a base station.

 

 

Figure 16.4b Using AirPort through a base station to provide a single Mac with wireless Internet access. Multiple wireless machines can connect at the same time.

 

Instead of connecting a DSL or cable modem to your machine, you connect that modem to the base station through its Ethernet port. (If you’re using a dial-up connection, the phone modem is built in to the AirPort Extreme base station, so you don’t have to connect one.) When the base station is connected to the Internet, you can roam anywhere within 150 feet of the base station with your PowerBook or iBook and have Internet access just as though you were connected directly. Often, if a lot of walls aren’t in the way, you can go even farther than 150 feet.

If you already have a home network, you can use AirPort to add machines to that network wirelessly. You also can share your Internet connection among all the machines, both wired and wireless, on your network (Figure 16.4c). In addition to connecting the base station to your DSL or cable modem through Ethernet, you also connect the base station to the wired part of your home network through its second Ethernet port. You can then roam with your notebook machines and add new computers anywhere in your house easily without having to string wires.

 

 

Figure 16.4c Using AirPort and a base station to add Macs to a home network wirelessly.

 

AirPort (WiFi) technology has become so popular that it is available in many public places through setups similar to Figure 16.4b but with the capability to connect multiple machines wirelessly at the same time. Coffee shops and other businesses in Ashland, Oregon, for example, have made AirPort-based Internet connections available free to patrons who bring in their own notebook computers since 2001 through the Ashland Unwired program. Many other cities have followed suit, and WiFi networks are now popping up in hotels and, well, airports. Larger AirPort networks are being set up in cities, colleges and private businesses, enabling city-wide, campus-wide and building-wide wireless intranet and Internet access.