Brian's Brain

My friend's DSL service was activated on Monday, and all in all it was a pretty good setup experience. Speakeasy reports that downstream speeds on AT&T's 'Pro' tier average 2.5 Mbps downstream and 430 Kbps upstream (versus up to 3 Mbps downstream and up to 512 Kbps upstream in the promotional materials). AT&T sent a modem cosmetically idential to the Siemens SpeedStream 4100 B unit I have up in Truckee, although this one's labeled as coming from Westell. And after 30 days of service, it'll be free-after-rebate-eligible.

AT&T sent out a technician to do the installation instead of just remotely attempting activation, which ended up being a good thing. The technician (who ended up being onsite for a good chunk of the afternoon) had to go up the pole to hook up DSL, and the NID (Network Interface Device) and associated wiring on the side of the house was so old and tattered that he also decided to replace it. The modem came preconfigured in 'router' mode, which correctly handed out a DHCP assignment to the netbook used to set up the DSL account but subsequently refused to give an IP address to the Apple Time Capsule.

Switching the Westell device to 'bridge' mode via its web browser interface and instead allowing the Time Capsule to handle the PPPoE connection, as I've got things configured with my Apple Airport Extreme 'N' router in Truckee, did the trick. 'Bridge' mode also disables any firewalls or any other impediments that the Westell unit might try to toss into the path between the LAN and the Internet. About that DSL activation process...although I declined the installation of the optional virus protection package, AT&T still threw both registration and diagnostics software on the netbook, along with switching the Internet Explorer home page to point to AT&T and installing a browser toolbar. How I detest when companies muck with my systems without permission or option to opt out...

The Time Capsule is basically an Apple router bundled with an integrated 3.5" HDD (in this case 500 GBytes in capacity) thereby making it slightly larger than the Airport Extreme 'N'. It understandably feels warmer to the touch than does my Airport Extreme 'N', and I hope that the incremental heat output doesn't adversely affect its reliability. Ironically, this particular unit went into service one day before Apple unveiled next-generation devices with 3x3 stream-capable antenna arrays along with unknown (and potentially nonexistent) silicon changes. This particular unit is based on Atheros silicon, whereas first-generation Time Capsules used Marvell ICs. Here's a short breakdown of the evolution of Apple's 802.11n-cognizant networking product line:

This Time Capsule is set up in dual band (and corresponding dual SSID) mode, with the 5 GHz beacon employing a wide channel for added bandwidth capabilities. Leveraging Glen Fleishman's published Option key trick, I've set the unit up as follows:

• 2.4 GHz: 802.11b/g
• 5 GHz: 802.11n-only

It's also using 'WPA/WPA2 Personal' (i.e. WPA-TKIP) encryption for maximum LAN client compatibility at the dubious tradeoff of potentially lower security. Unfortunately, I was unable to set a SSID-specific encryption mode; one setting spanned both bands. And double-unfortunately, at least for the moment, I ended up disabling the Guest Network, which when active creates a third wireless beacon and associated SSID (this one with a dedicated encryption setting) and is intended to give users access to the WAN connection but not to any other LAN client save (optionally) other Guest Network residents. A spectrum sweep revealed that the Guest Network was running in 5 GHz 802.11n-only mode, and I can't figure out how to reconfigure it for 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g instead.

As I've grumbled about before, the Time Capsule requires a dedicated configuration program (built in to OS X, and also available for Windows) versus employing the browser-based approach that most other routers use nowadays. Connecting to the integrated hard drive for backup or other purposes is a breeze in OS X; my Time Machine sessions run just as they would with my Netgear NAS or with an external HDD USB-connected to my router. Using an USB-tethered printer (such as my Brother HL-1440) works just fine as well.

With Windows, printer and storage usage is unfortunately underwhelming. Bonjour support is automatically added to the system when you install the Airport Configuration Utility, and you subsequently use a Bonjour-provided utility (which worked fine with all systems I tried it on) to link up with a networked printer for the first time. Another dedicated utility supposedly enables you to connect to the Time Capsule's HDD, but I was only sporadically able to do so; in most cases, I ended up with obscure error messages such as "Could not connect to the disk. Make sure NetBIOS is enabled" and ""Connection Failed. Unknown user, incorrect password, or login is disabled. Please retype the login information or contact the disk's administrator". It's seemingly not a Windows networking stack problem, since power-cycling the Time Capsule restores connectivity (at least for a while). If Apple's serious about selling Time Capsule to Windows users, the company should augment the unit with SMB and UPnP support to make the Windows experience more seamless and reliable.

Followup: I just remembered one other gripe. The only built-in means of 'finding' the router on the Internet (aside from getting static IP DSL service, which is costly) is to register the Apple router via a MobileMe account. Granted, such a scheme usually works well; I just confirmed that I'm able to find and access my friend's router via my AT&T DSL connection. But a MobileMe account costs $99 per year. And yes, I could instead install the DynDNS client on my friend's Windows computer and obtain an up-to-date IP address for the router that way. But wouldn't built-in Apple router support for DynDNS and other dynamic DNS service providers, as many other manufacturers' products offer nowadays, be nice? I think so.