Airport Express extends non-Apple base stations

When I got home with my new Airport Express base station/print server/iTunes stereo interface thingy, I decided to try to set it up as a range extender, using Wi-Fi's WDS technology on my home network. Apple says the APX will only work with an Airport Extreme base station, and around the web, I've seen a few people claiming it can't be done, because WDS is not really a part of the 802.11 standard, so vendors are free to implement it in their own way.

This appears to NOT be the case. Leafing through 802.11 Wireless Networks: The Definitive Guide, it looks like WDS is in fact, implemented in a standard way, with each repeater taking a role equivalent to a single port on a switch.

The good news is that I got lucky with my hardware selection. About a year ago, I bought a Buffalo WBR-G54 base station, so I could use the Airport Extreme card in my PowerBook at full speed, and because, after rebates, it was $50 (!!) at CompUSA. The Buffalo has a very frustrating interface, but lets you set everything under the sun, and a jack for adding an external antenna, all for around half the cost of an Airport Extreme Base Station. It's therefore a good choice for geeks looking to save money and unafraid of getting their hands dirty. It's also very similar to the Extreme base station, and showed up as a choice in my Airport Express software, when it was looking for a base station with which it could associate.

It was a fairly simple matter to get the two units on the same channel with the same SSID and the same password. Since I'm filtering on MAC addresses, I had to make sure the Buffalo had both MAC addresses from the APX, and had to set the APX to serve packets originating from the Buffalo. It can be hard to tell if it's working, so iStumbler can be a big help: When you see two base stations with the same name and channel, you're likely home free.

The Linksys routers, which are generally the standard among geeks who know, have some problems here, and people are flashing custom firmware to get this to work with them.

Some links:

garth.org | Buffalo WBR-G54 and Apple Airport Express as a Relay

Set-Up Guide Buffalo WGR-G54 BaseStation with Apple Airport Express in WDS mode.

Apple - Discussions - Buffalo WBR-G54 + APX = WDS WORKING!!!!

Buffalo Technology - Downloads