Dual-band Support: Faster Wifi for All

With the updates this morning, I read over this sentence and didn’t even really stop to think about it:

AirPort Extreme now operates in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously to ensure top performance for all your devices.

Here’s what that really means - that a single base station can broadcast the faster 802.11N signal for N-equipped computers (including ever Macintosh computer, including the just-updated Mac mini) and the slower 802.11G signal for devices like iPhones, iPod Touch devices, and older computers.

The benefit here is that the computers can run at full 802.11Nspeeds, since a N network has to throttle down its speed when a G-equipped device joins the network. Major win on Apple’s part.