Wi Fi secrets

Create the perfect home network and banish the wires from all your Apple devices!

Ever since Apple introduced AirPort in 1999, it has been at the forefront of wireless technology – making it easy to shuttle files back and forwards between all your devices cable-free – it’s hard to imagine using a Mac, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch without it. And what you can do wirelessly has grown hugely since then, enabling music streaming, video entertainment, control of our homes, and much more.

The technology has developed over time, too. The original AirPort used the IEEE 802.11b networking standard with a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 11Mbps, but since then we’ve had 802.11g (54Mbps), 802.11n (600Mbps) and now 802.11ac (1.3Gbps) – the current standard found in all new Mac and iOS devices. 802.11ac brings more than just a huge increase in data transmission speeds (which are typically around 250Mbps and 300Mbps in real world usage), it’s also more robust over longer distances and when passing through walls and other obstacles, making it less likely that you’ll experience dead zones.

Most wireless devices use different parts of the radio spectrum, at 2.4GHz and 5GHz. 2.4GHz is the most common and crowded in terms of Wi-Fi traffic, while 5GHz is still relatively unused – newer devices can seamlessly switch them. Routers like the AirPort Extreme are also backwards-compatible so they work with older 802.11a, b, g and n devices too. The other good news is that while there are other Wi-Fi standards on the horizon, 802.11ac is still relatively new, and that means your Mac, iOS devices and AirPort Extreme should last you a good few years yet.