Global technology: divided by a common language

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IanA2

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Silly question I think, but I need some clarity. Being a recent arrival in the Mac lounge, I'm finding some of the vocabulary a little problematic.

I call a broad band router, a broad band router. I call a wireless access point a wireless access point.

I'm not exactly sure what our american cousins call what what. For example I spoke to an Apple store Genius who described a broad band router as modem and a wireless access point as a wireless router.

Normally such esoteric terminology would have exceeding little interest to me, but I am going Mac and I need a new wireless storage setup to replace my HP Home Server.

It seems that the Time Capsule is just the job, but for the life of me I cannot translate it's functions.

So, question is, does anyone have one, is it a router and wireless access point combined or just a wireless access point, and finally, is it worth having from a storage point of view?

Thanks folks.
 
AFAIK it's an WiFi access point, but not a modem. i.e. it will connect your wirless devices to your wired network, or to cable provider (e.g. Virgin), but if you have ADSL then you will also need a separate ADSL Router (incorrectly aka ADSL modem) which will connect into the WAN port.

specs_backlabels_20080115.jpg
 
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AFAIK it's an WiFi access point, but not a modem. i.e. it will connect your wirless devices to your wired network, or to cable provider (e.g. Virgin), but if you have ADSL then you will also need a separate ADSL Router (incorrectly aka ADSL modem) which will connect into the WAN port.

specs_backlabels_20080115.jpg

Many thanks, you confirm what I thought, it was a language problem. Question now is, if I plug it into my d-link combined router/wap, will it work, or would I be better just plugging a hard drive into the dlink?
 
Many thanks, you confirm what I thought, it was a language problem. Question now is, if I plug it into my d-link combined router/wap, will it work, or would I be better just plugging a hard drive into the dlink?

Both options are fine, but will achieve different things. The problem with ADSL Routers with WiFi is that you are limited in your ability to locate the WiFi in the best possible way, because the router has to be near the telephone socket (unless you run long extension leads). With a second Access Point, you can locate it in a different part of the house and have better coverage. You will still need to run a UTP cable between the ADSL Router and the Time Capsule.

Mind you, you will have two separate wireless networks with two different SSIDs and will need to manually connect and disconnect from the relevant wireless network.

A network-attached external hard disk drive - SAN - will be just that...
 

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