Digital Trends

Apple AirPort Express

August 9th, 2004 | by Jeff Fila

Setting up the AirPort Express

Setup of the AirPort Express is fairly easy and straightforward, with Apple including an instruction booklet for both Mac and PC environments. The included CD installs a setup wizard and a separate management program, as well as iTunes and Apple's Quicktime media player. This was a bit annoying to us as there is no way to chose to not install Quicktime and while most Macs may already have it, PC users often have no need, or desire, to install the application.

While most other wired and wireless routers have web-based management consoles, the AirPort Express can only be managed with Apple's Airport Admin Utility, or the setup assistant. To set the device up, you first plug in the audio cable, Ethernet cable and USB printer cable — you can chose to use all of these or any combination of them. The wizard walks you through the setup of the device and allows you to configure it with your existing network or as its own network.

In our testing, we used both the wizard and the admin utility to set up different networks, including creating our own AirPort Express network and joining an existing 802.11g network. Creating an AirPort Express network is the easiest and the wizard walks you through all of the steps. The device supports all of today's encryption protocols including 40-bit and 128-bit WEP and several WPA options. It also features common router configuration options such as MAC filtering, the ability to change wireless channels, and naming the network (SSID). Unfortunately, it doesn't allow you to turn off broadcasting of your SSID, a security measure that we think is important. Apple's solution for that is to turn the transmitter power down, but that reduces the device's wireless footprint.

While Apple's instructions explain how to add the AirPort Express to an existing wireless network, it is not a particularly easy process. We were unable to connect the AirPort Express to an existing non-AirPort network with WEP encryption turned on, and we tried two different routers. We found a few forum posts in Apple's discussion boards explaining that Apple's instructions are incorrect and that they should tell you to use a "$" before entering in your WEP password. We tried this and still could not join our existing network. Joining existing wired networks was quite simple, however.

One thing we really liked about the Compex NP54G-USB router was the responsiveness of its Web admin tool and the fact that it doesn't require you to reboot the device for most changes. Other routers seem to have to reboot upon every little change, and the AirPort Express suffers from that problem too. Worse though is that rebooting the AirPort Express takes a much longer time than any other router we've used before.

Apple has implemented a profile option into the admin that we really liked. The feature allows you to save up to five different profiles for the AirPort Express which can be selected from a pull down menu. This allows you to, for instance, set up one configuration for your home, one for your beach house, and one for a hotel you stay at on business trips.