Tweaking an AirPort Extreme Network

If your AirPort network is not operating quite the way you want, the AirPort Admin Utility provides several settings that can help you keep it under control.

Setting Interference Robustness

Wireless telephones, television repeaters (including wireless video repeaters), and microwave ovens are all examples of 2.4 GHz devices that can interfere with 802.11 wireless networks. The Use Interference Robustness setting tells the AirPort Express or AirPort Extreme Base Station to rebroadcast lost packets at a higher rate than normal. It is available for AirPort Extreme Cards with AirPort 3.1 or later installed. AirPort (802.11b) clients have always had interference robustness activated, so this option does not appear for them. Interference robustness must also be activated on the base station in order for this feature to work.

On AirPort Extreme clients, choose Use Interface Robustness from the AirPort menu extra:

Setting the WAN Ethernet Speed

The Internet pane of the AirPort Admin Utility has a setting for WAN Ethernet Speed.

You can select the speed of the WAN port from the WAN Ethernet Port pop-up menu. This option is available for all Connect Using menu items except Modem and WDS. The items in the WAN Ethernet Port pop-up menu are Automatic (Default), 10 Mbps/Half Duplex, 10 Mbps/Full Duplex, 100 Mbps/Half Duplex, and 100 Mbps/Full Duplex.

Being able to change the speed of the WAN port is useful for troubleshooting the Ethernet connection by running in half duplex or setting it at a lower speed.