Customer Reviews
Using this Wireless Bridge with Macs
This unit works well for streaming Netflix Instant on videos to my Sony BDP-N460 Blu-ray Disc Player for playback on my Sony Bravia8 XBR TV without timeouts or delays in the signal.
It is the only bridge that I found that has four plugs in the back allowing both the TV, DVD to plug in (with space to plug in an Apple TV or Apple MiniMac in the future).
However, there is no documentation about how to use this unit with Macs.
Here is a guide to my setup:
To setup with Mac Tiger Os 10.4.11 or Leopard 10.5.x and a first generation Time Capsule unit broadcasting a 802.11n signal.
Note that none of the supplied software will work on a Mac so web based setup is necessary for Macs. However, you can access the manual on the CD. Also the AOSS setup method will not work with Mac Airport Base stations. The Mac documentation is essentially non-existent.
A major problem for WEP password users:
The WEP password option used with Apple Time Capsule Airport stations and newer Airport units is a special form called WEP (Transitional Security Network) when you select the 802.11n option for network setup in the Airport Utility program. What is this? Here is the Apple description:
A Transitional Security Network (TSN) is a network that uses the Transitional Security Network Protocol that allows clients to authenticate with networks in the most secure way possible, based on the capabilities of their hardware and software. Computers capable of connecting using the WPA standard will be able to authenticate using a WPA password. Computers that do not meet the requirements to authenticate using WPA will use WEP instead.
The same password is used on all clients of the Transitional Security Network, regardless of the specific authentication method they use.
I was unable to get WEP (Transitional Security Network) passwords to work with the Buffalo unit. Neither the 13 character ASCII passwords or the hexadecimal password (from the pass phrase - this is found by selecting the base station you will use in the Apple Utility program, select "Base Station" in the menu and "Equivalent Network Password") would work if I set the Time Capsule base station to broadcast as 802.11n with any of the available settings in the Airport Utility program - i.e. compatible with 802.11a or with 802.11b/g.
I had no problem connecting to the Buffalo unit using WPA-Personal or WPA2-Personal settings or no password protection, only if I tried to connect using WEP passwords using the 802.11n standard.
If you configure your base station using the manual technique and then select the "Radio mode" menu while holding down the option key, then you get additional modes where you can set your 802.11n base station to use only 802.11a or 802.11b/g, etc. but this negates the speed advantages of using the 802.11n mode.
Therefore, to get the fast 802.11n speeds, you need to use the WPA-Personal or WPA2-Personal. This will not allow old 802.11a/b/g units to attach if they must use WEP passwords. I think that most Mac computers, even Power PC G4/G5 units like mine using 802.11b/g cards can use the WPA-Personal or WPA2-Personal if using Tiger 10.4.11. However an old iBook running 10.2 did not nor did an old Linksys Ethernet bridge.
To work around this problem, I think that the newer Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations allow you to set up a "Guest" network - my unit does not. You could set up this Guest network to either have no password protection or WEP password protection while broadcasting only as 802.11b/g. This would allow old computers/other wireless equipment that do not use the 802.11n standard to use the Airport network.
Since I had an old Airport Extreme modem that only uses the 802.11b/g standard, I set up a second network with a different name with this unit plugged into one of the Ethernet outlets on the Time Capsule.
To do this, you need to change the IP address range so that it does not conflict with the Time Capsule. Select the second base station unit, select "Internet" then select DHCP. Instead of using the default setting of 10.0.1.2 use 10.0.2.2 and the ending address of 10.0.2.200. When I did this I had no problems. I could even access my ethernet connected printer that was plugged into the Time Capsule (but set up with an 10.0.1.xxx IP address).
With all that set up of the Base station, you can now set up the Buffalo unit.
You need to use the Web Based ethernet setup for Macs. There is some documentation in the User Manual which is in the documents folder on the CD supplied with the unit (no instructions are found in the paper Quick Setup guide).
First attach a Ethernet cable from your Mac and plug it into one of the ports in the back of the Buffalo unit. On your Mac, select System Preferences > Network > Built in Ethernet1 or Ethernet2 depending on the jack it is plugged into>
In the first menu panel under TCP/IP, use the pull down menu for Configure IPv4 to select Manually instead of DHCP, type in 1.1.1.2 and set the router to 1.1.1.1
You can follow the instructions in the manual (found on the CD) pages 16-21.
Manual
Refer to your operating system documentation on how to configure a Static IP address. The Ethernet Converter has an IP address of 1.1.1.1 by default. You'll need to configure the computer to be on the same subnet; an IP address of 1.1.1.2 is recommended for the computer.
With the included network patch cable, connect one of the Ethernet Converter's LAN ports to an open Ethernet port on a router, switch, or hub on your network. Alternately, you can plug the Ethernet Converter directly to the configuring computer's Ethernet port.
Once the network cable has been plugged in, plug the Ethernet Converter's AC Adapter into an available power outlet. Then attach the power connector to the back of the Ethernet Converter. The boot process takes less than a minute and is completed when the power LED glows a solid blue without blinking.
The main thing you need to do after that is open a web browser and type 1.1.1.1 into the address window.
This should open up the Web based setup menu and prompt you to enter a username (use "root") and password (leave this blank, there is no password).
Now, you connect to your Apple Airport network by selecting "Connect to Airstation". This will bring up a submenu, for the SSID click on Search and this gives a list of the networks available. Select your network, if it has a password you will be prompted to enter it. Remember, if you want 802.11n speeds, you cannot use WEP (Transitional Security Network) passwords that are used by most modern Airport Base Stations and will have to use WPA or WPA2 for your Encryption format (as WPA2 PSK AES in the pull down menu). Then enter your password (encryption key).
This should bring you back to the TOP or front page after about 1 minutes. Now, under Wireless you should have your network name since you are connected.
Then go to the Buffalo unit and set the small switch on the side to "x2". This set the bridge to use 40 Hz which allow twice as fast transfer speeds.
You can then select Advanced Settings, click on the "802.11a/802.11b/g" section.
As I recall, this opens a submenu where you can set the band frequency and compatibility setting that you want to use. I think that I used Compatible with 802.11b/g. You can also set it to Only 802.11b/g. From what I understand, although nowhere does it say 802.11n, this helps to select the bandwidth frequency that you are using, (i.e. 2.4 GHz for 802.11b/g vs 5.0 GHz for 802.11a). The 5 GHz band is less populated but the signal does not penetrate walls as well.
Note that 802.11n can use either the 2.4 or 5.0 GHz ranges. I guess you can force the use of 1 of these bands by 802.11n by using the "Only 802.11a" for 2.4 GHz or "Only 802.11b/g" mode for 5.0 GHz since these are restricted to the indicated range.
Check the setting you are using in your base station.
Finally, click on the selection on the bottom of the page (I think that this is "Status" but don't remember). This should then display how the unit is working and the estimated mbs. Mine was about 130 mbs. This decreases by about half if you move the switch from x2 to x1.
If everything is good, disconnect the ethernet cord and change your Computer ethernet setting back to previous values.
Now move the Buffalo unit to where it is going to be used along with its power cord. Run ethernet cords from the TV and/or BlueRay DVD player (or whatever) to the Buffalo unit. You should have internet access.
You can actually check the transfer rate by opening up Airport Utility, select your base station then click on Manual setup then go to Base Station pull down menu and select Logs and Statistics. Check the MAC address of your Buffalo unit (on the bottom of the unit) or the device you are going to use with the unit. Connect up your BlueRay player and select Netflix and stream an Instant Access movie (this is possible with the Sony Network BlueRay DVD player). Or stream something on your computer or transfer a big file. In the Logs and statistic section, you should see the Mac address of either the Buffalo unit or one of the attached units with the rate (speed) listed.
Good wireless bridge
I use this device to connect my bedroom TV, which requires a wired Ethernet connection, to my wireless network. It serves the purpose quite nicely.
The best feature is that it has 4 Ethernet outputs which is great given that most competitor products only have one Ethernet output.
Connection quality is acceptable. I get 130Mbps bandwidth with 94% signal strength in my bedroom which is one floor away from the main wireless access point. The farthest point in the house (4 rooms away) gets 20% signal strength with ~30Mbps. Not bad at all.
The included device configuration utility, unfortunately, did not install on Windows 7 64-bit. I used the "Windows XP Mode" virtual machine of Windows 7 to get the device configured, instead. Once the device was configured, everything else worked as expected.
Overall, I'm happy with the purchase.
Solid 802.11n Bridge
Exactly the same as the previous reviewer, I had a 802.11g bridge from Buffalo that had served me well, but as I had upgraded the house to a 802.11n router, it seemed appropriate to upgrade to the 802.11n bridge too.
My mistake was not going with Buffalo again initially - went with a D-Link bridge that simply didn't work - ended up returning the D-Link bridge and going with this Buffalo model. Simply put, the Buffalo bridge works very well, and is reliable. It doesn't have external antennas which meant a little fiddling to get the best reception compared with the 802.11g Buffalo bridge which did have an antenna. Also, the firmware is functional but badly translated from the Japanese, although that's really just a cosmetic issue. The bridge came with the correct firmware out of the box, which was nice. Finally, Buffalo don't use the regular "DC Adapter Plug Brick" approach, they use a cable to a AC/DC converter, then another cable to the bridge itself, which helped with socket placement compared to competing products.
Only downside is that it is not a gigabit switch, but frankly not an issue given that the 802.11n standard almost never reaches 100Mb Full Duplex speed anyway.
Overall, would certainly purchase Buffalo equipment again.
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