Is my old AirPort Extreme still usable in 2025?

At probably about 20 years old, it's a museum piece, but if you are still using it, and it is working OK, it won't hurt to continue doing so as long as you understand that Internet speeds are going to be limited to about 50 Mbps at best.

That wasn't bad performance in its day, but if you are paying your Internet Service Provider for faster service, and you want faster service, it would make sense to look for a new router.

WPA2 Personal security on the AirPort is OK for general home use, but I would not recommend using the AirPort if you are running a business or conducting a lot of important financial transactions.

You are going to need an ancient Mac to run an early version of AirPort Utility to administer the AirPort, or AirPort Utility for a PC. A Mac running anything higher than Mountain Lion won't be able to administer the AirPort.

I concur with Bob on this being a museum piece.

Is it still useful? Hmm...

... do you still need dial-up access to the America Online (AOL) network?

... are you still running OS X 10.2 "Jaguar" on a G4 Mac?

... with this base station only capable of running WEP or WPA wireless encryption, do you want to operate a "unsecured" wireless network?

Ref:

• Apple Delivers AirPort Extreme 802.11g Wireless Networking - Apple
• https://web.archive.org/web/20040608125410/http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/specs.html

Hello Tesserax!

I was assuming.....(never a smart thing to do).....that the OP was asking about the popular A1034 version of the older AirPort Extreme.

That version does support WPA2.....according to Mactracker....but some other "earlier" versions did not.

Hi Bob! I'm sure you're right. Digging deeper into my notes, I see that WPA2 required AirPort Utility 4.2.5 on OS X Leopard or 4.2 on Windows 2000/XP to enable/manage it ... and as you noted, this base station supported WPA2.

Since they all look similar, the only thing I couldn't glean from the provided image was which exact variant the OP has, but that shouldn't matter as all three support WPA2.

Not possible, unless you plan to "extend" by connecting the AirPort Extreme to another router using a permanent wired Ethernet cable connection.

Even then, the AirPort would be a poor match to anything other than another AirPort A1034.

The wireless "extend" feature came in the next generation of "flat and square" AirPort products and it only worked with other AirPort routers......not with any 3rd party routers.

I had to "dust off" some old notes. Back in the early days of the AirPort base stations, it was possible to extend the wireless range of a very, very, few non-Apple wireless routers. Namely those that supported DD-WRT firmware, like the Linksys WRT54G ... but, it was not simple to set up, nor was it very dependable.

In practical terms, the AirPort Extreme (802.11g, introduced 2003) and the first-gen AirPort Express (2004) were the main models that could do this. Both had WDS support that could be configured in AirPort Admin Utility. The trick was to set the Linksys/DD-WRT router as the WDS main station and the AirPort as a remote or relay station. It wasn’t always seamless — you’d lose some bandwidth due to WDS overhead, and certain encryption types (like WPA2) didn’t play nice across brands back then, so many people fell back to WEP or WPA (TKIP) for compatibility.

Tesserax

Thank you for this original news release article, as my

spare unused Apple AirPort Extreme 54, is still inside

its 'refurbished from Apple' generic cardboard box!

Apple Delivers AirPort Extreme 802.11g Wireless Networking - Apple

I'd gotten two, an extra for my dad & his wife; who'd

moved to Belize and needed top notch Wi-Fi model

with the 56k dial-up modem & all options of the day.

Only thing not bought was the ability to install these

inside HVAC ducting, as that was a curiosity..! I'm

using a slightly newer AirPort Extreme (rectangular)

and it's not too slow, for here in urban AK. Still have

one of these originals, at the old house in Kenai Mts.

Ah yes.....I had totally forgot about WDS. Thanks for the info!