The problem with Airport Networking is that it just works

The often experienced problem with tinkering is that in the process you screw things up and have to figure out how to put all back together again. Of course, it's the process of rebuilding things which leads to new insights and improvements. In this scenario, this was all about Airport home networking tinkering.  The aim of the tinkering was to do 3 things:

• Maintain a 5Ghz wifi network for all my smartphones, tablets, Macs, Media streamers and Windows PCs
• Ensure it was a roaming network for each device to pick up the best signal, regardless of where it was being used in the house (3-floors)
• Get the Airplay playback to Sonos less prone to drop out because it was connected to my 2.4Ghz wifi network

Sonos Airplay
Using the previous version of Airport Utility (5.5.6), it was very easy to add Airplay to Sonos to throw iOS device music at the different Sonos zones. While the wifi radio on the 1st generation Airport Express was turned off, I did configure it to join the 2.4Ghz wifi network running off my Billion router. Playback on the Sonos Airplay was patchy in that it would consistently cut out the signal at various points in the playback of any tracks from my iPhone.  It made no difference for which zone it connected it to and which iDevice I used. I had the same symptom of issue with Rogue Amoeba's Airfoil which I shared previously. Given that Sonos creates it own optimised mesh network to optimally playback wireless music, my suspicion was that this had to do with the Airplay part going over the 2.4Ghz network where throughput is renowned for being choppy, regardless of any channel I chose.

The 5Ghz network
The initial idea was to add 2 Airport Expresses to the 5Ghz network (Airport Extreme – 'AExt') which would add coverage to black spots in the house, due to the shorter ranges covered by the 5Ghz mode.

I set up the first 'AExp' (for the lounge) using the 'extend wireless' option for the main 5Ghz network and it was operating fine.  Issues started to happen when I tried to add another AExp (for the loft) wirelessly in the loft to similarly extend the wireless network. At first, the wireless connection simply would not pick up. After a few soft resets, I managed to get it to pick up via an ethernet connection.  Then I found it was operating the extended wireless network at the 2.4Ghz which went against my aims. I ended up setting up another wireless access point with a different name to ensure I could get the 5Ghz mode which I wanted. Less than ideal.

What I learned from this was a subtle difference between Creating and Extending a wireless network with Airport Utility. While extending is fairly obvious, Airport Utility can actually extend your network by using the Create a Wireless network option. In this instance, the new access point  simply adds new 2.4 and 5ghz channels to the same access point name. In this regard, it optimises the wireless performance of the AExp where it is located, instead of forcibly making it run to the channels of its parent base station.  The result is a change as in the screenshots below. Loft AExp – tick.

Initial set up for additional base stations
- wired and wireless

So I returned to the Lounge AExp and thought it would be relatively easy to change the connection from wireless to wired by simply adding the ethernet cable to the switch where it was located.  What I found was somewhat strange - it seemed to cause a network storm and take down the Internet connection.  Take the ethernet cable out, and in a few seconds, all access points and the internet were back.

I suspected possible causes of this easy repeatable were either IPv6 LAN traffic enabled on the Billion and being automatically picked up on the AExt and AExp's.  So I turned this off and plugged in the ethernet cable again.  All connections went down again.

Then I realised — the magic of the Airport products, is that you need to soft reset them and run the Add a new base station routine in Airport Utility. Voila, it worked. 

Throughput wise (and concentrating on 5ghz), it has been beneficial. The rather hidden 'hover over' feature in Airport Utility (Mac) shows solid connection rates for each piece of kit. For example — iPhone at 52Mbps, Galaxy Nexus 39-65Mpbs, Apple TV 3rd gen 65Mpbs, Apple TV 1st gen 162-270Mbps, MacBook Air 162-270Mbps.

Results wise, I have 3 base stations connected by ethernet, using the same access point name across each floor, each with support for 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz support. The only difference between them is the channels being used for 2.4 or 5Ghz modes.  In effect, Airport Utility has optimised their radio signal as per their respective location.

Back to Sonos Airplay

Using the same principle of soft reset to re-run the set up routine for the 1st gen Airport Express, it is also connected by ethernet to my Sonos Play S5 in the lounge, with the wireless turned off.  When I airplay audio from the iPhone or the iPad, it works – flawlessy.

So the final Airport base station network now looks like this.

All ethernet wired base stations
- even Airplay with Sonos, which plays nice!

Morale of the story?  Use ethernet for connecting each base station to your network. Get HomePlugs and Switches if you have to, and while it will cost extra, it makes for a more satisfying device connection and playback performance across the entire network.

A couple of other points of note.  TidBits editor, Glenn Fleishman's video on Airport Utility is a great introduction on the latest how to on Airport Utility.  I go even further and recommend his book available in ePub, Kindle or iBooks which goes into extra detail for running and configuring Airport product networks at home or in the office.  Recommended.