I note with interest this report on HardMac (via Gizmodo) that more than 200 Airport Express base stations have ceased functioning 13 to 18 months after purchase — because, you may recall, so did mine.

From the report:

Today, with over 200 reports of APX defects, we can draw some conclusions:
- as we originally suspected, it predominantly affects users living in 220/230V-based countries (98% of the reports).
- all defective APX have been manufactured by Foxconn during S2 2004
- as a result, all defective APX have a serial number starting with HS42, HS43 or HS44.
- most of the defective APX have a product number either A1084 or A1088.

We are still missing proof that the large amount of defective APX is based on a design or component failure, even though we also suspect a Samsung-branded fuse to be part of the problem.

It’s interesting, but not necessarily surprising, that the serial number of my defunct AirPort Express begins with HS44; my replacement base station’s serial number begins with 6F53. And, true to form, the old station lasted a bit more than a year — though I’m not in a 220V region. Interesting.