Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ AirPort Express Turned into Simultaneous Dual-Band Hockey Puck Glenn Fleishman On the heels of a rash of WWDC announcements, Apple quietly slipped out a major revision to the [1]AirPort Express base station that dramatically improves its usefulness but leaves the price at $99. The new model brings dual simultaneous band support to the device, and shrinks it to precisely the same size as an [2]Apple TV: 3.9 inches (98mm) square by 0.9 inches (23mm) tall. (The Apple TV is an ounce heavier.) Apple is clearly engaging in some benefits of scale by switching its unique 2003/2008 Express case design with one that is identical to the Apple TV. They'll stack and pair nicely. There's one difference: The Apple TV is black and the AirPort Express (like all Apple Wi-Fi devices) is white. The new model also finally has two Ethernet ports: one for a wide-area connection (WAN) and the other for a local network (LAN), replacing a single dual-purpose jack in the original and revised models. The Ethernet ports are both 10/100 Mbps, which I have reservations about described later in the article. [3][tn_AirPort-Express-2012.jpg] (Before you ask, I won't need to do an extensive update to my Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network, Third Edition, book that we just updated to cover AirPort Utility 6.0 and the iOS utility app; see '[4]'Take Control of Your 802.11n AirPort Network' Updated,' 24 May 2012. All the advice that applies to an Extreme, except for attaching peripherals via USB, now applies to the Express as well.) The AirPort Express was originally introduced in 2003 as a cheaper, portable alternative and extension to the AirPort Extreme Base Station. The Extreme could support dozens of simultaneous users and had an antenna and radio meant to carry a signal some distance. The Express was rated for just 10 users, and was compact enough to travel with, but the range at which it worked was substantially more restricted than the Extreme. You could attach it to a wall outlet directly with flip-out plug, or buy a $39 audio/extender kit that let you attach a lengthy electrical cord. However, the AirPort Express had three unique features. First, it had (and still has) an audio output jack with both analog and digital optical (Toslink) capability. The audio jack streams music from iTunes using what was once called AirTunes (for audio only), and now is part of AirPlay (which handles audio and video). Second, it sported a USB outlet into which you could plug a single printer to share across a local network. A third, less well-known and less-used feature was the ability to choose an option to make the Express act like a Wi-Fi adapter to extend a network just for Ethernet and audio streaming. That appears to have been removed in AirPort Utility 6.0. The Extreme gained 802.11n support, the latest flavor in a series of Wi-Fi updates, in 2007; a year later, the Time Capsule debuted with 802.11n as well. Each model could use either the 2.4 GHz or less-used 5 GHz bands with 802.11n, which supports both frequency ranges, but you had to pick which band before restarting the base station. Change the band, and you had to restart it again. Both beefier base stations also included USB from the start, with the option to attach a hard drive or printer, or connect a USB hub and then plug in multiple drives and printers. Apple updated the Express for single-band 802.11n in 2008, but left the USB limit of a single printer in place. In 2009, the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule received another big boost: simultaneous dual-band support. You no longer needed to choose which band nor buy multiple base stations to support older devices that could use only 802.11b or 802.11g in 2.4 GHz, or newer devices, like all iPhones and iPod touch models, which only include 2.4 GHz support for 802.11n. (All iPad models and all Macs released since 2006 can work over either band.) The Express languished. It was cheaper, at $99, than the Extreme (unchanged for years at $179) and Time Capsule (priced at $299 and $499, depending on drive capacity, even as the two drive sizes have been upgraded twice since introduction). But it still had a nice niche because of its compact size and audio output, as well as its use to fill hard-to-reach nooks in a house with Wi-Fi. I receive questions from TidBITS readers and owners of my Take Control book nearly every week about the Express and how to use older and newer units to extend networks and stream audio. This update brings two changes beyond the radio improvement making it a cheaper option. First, having two Ethernet ports, one for WAN and one for LAN, allows you to use the Express as your sole base station on a mixed Ethernet/Wi-Fi network. Second, having a flat, compact external power cord, instead of an integral one (unless you bought a kit, discontinued last year) makes it much simpler to place an Express at home or while traveling. My sole gripe with the revised AirPort Express is its continued use of 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, even though it now has separate ports for WAN and LAN. This outdated standard is also found on the Apple TV, where it makes sense, as one doesn't need anything like 100 Mbps to stream video to the device. But on a router, it's a little frustrating. Ostensibly, and this is testable, Apple hasn't limited speed for intra-wireless connections. That is, one should be able to use the full raw 75 Mbps and 300 Mbps bandwidth in 2.4 and 5 GHz among devices using either band (true throughput is closer to 30'40 Mbps and 100'150 Mbps, respectively). Likewise, you can plug a $30 gigabit Ethernet switch into the Express's LAN port and have full gigabit throughput available among wired devices. The limit is only for the rare people who have above 100 Mbps to the Internet, and for the WLAN-LAN crossover: where you are transferring lots of data regularly between wired Ethernet and wireless Wi-Fi devices. Still, even without testing the updated unit, I am sure it will be a big hit for folks for whom $179 seemed too much, and who were thinking about purchasing a less-expensive Cisco or other non-Apple brand, or who want to buy and set up an inexpensive, hassle-free AirPort base station for friends or relatives. This price drop and Ethernet port improvement makes it affordable to stay in the Apple fold with its ease of setup and configuration, as well as its support for all things Apple. I can envision a future merger of Apple TV and Express by simply adding an HDMI port to the Express and putting in an A5 processor to handle video streaming and wireless routing at the same time. They use the same form factor; it's as logical as the Time Capsule's combination of backup drive and base station. References 1. http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/ 2. https://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html 3. http://tidbits.com/resources/2012-06/AirPort-Express-2012.png 4. http://tidbits.com/article/13020 .