Airport Extreme on Dial Up

[Galant]

Hi there, I've just arrived at my Dad's to find he's having some issues with a network setup with an Airport Extreme. He's asked me to take a look, and I've gotten so far but I'm not a Mac person so I have a question, if you wonderful Hexites could assist?!

My Dad currently has a regular AirPort Extreme utilising a dialup connection. His iBook G4 connects just fine with no problems. His wife, however, has a laptop running windows, as do I. It appears that I can only get these online via the wireless connection if I have already established a connection using the iBook. Thus, I can get all three computers online and running perfectly but the latops will only do it if the iBook is running an active internet connection itself. If the iBook is not dialed into the internet then the laptops wont connect, although they recognise the wireless signal of the airport.

Is this how it's supposed to function on a dialup connection or is there a way to use the laptops to get online without connecting via the iBook?

Thanks.

[charleski]

Let me guess, the iBook is the one plugged into the telephone line, right? If so, then yes, that's the way it works. Whichever machine is plugged into the phoneline will be the one actually making the connection to your ISP, so it has to be on to connect and share the connection with the other computers. You could connect with one of the other machines, but it would have to be plugged in and given the info needed to dial the ISP.

[Galant]

Actually, the ibook connect wirelessly also.

[charleski]

Well there has to be a modem somewhere, and it won't be in the Airport. Just look at what's plugged into the phoneline.

[Galant]

You've lost me.

The phone line is plugged into the AirPort. And a power cable. I'm sure the iBook has a modem. But so would the laptops, I assume. Could that be it? Either the others need their modems configured or they don't have them?

Obviously, they have wireless adapters.

[peterb]

According to the Apple UK website, the airport extreme is a wireless router, and needs an external modem to connect, either ADSL or cable, so I'm not sure how you are using a dial up connection. What sort of connection is it? Really dial up or some form of broadband?

[charleski]

The phone line is plugged into the AirPort.

Ahh, after doing a bit of searching I found that some old blob-shaped models of the Airport Extreme came with a modem for AOL. Don't know if those were ever sold in the UK.

You'll want to make sure that the Airport software is installed on the windows machines. You can download it here. Use the Airport Admin Utility to make sure that the Airport's modem is correctly configured with the dial-up phone no., account name and password, since it may just be getting these from the iBook.

[Galant]

Blob-shaped sounds about right!

I'll try that out - thanks!