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Are There 802.11 Cards That Accept A Wire?

Posted by Cliff on from the when-a-2.4Ghz-signal-is-unavailable dept.

Luti asks: "Does anyone know of a company that sells 802.11 dongles, or a PCMCIA card that has both a regular RJ-45 connector and an 802.11 antenna? I need to be able to connect my laptop at school (wireless), and at home through my server (due to price most likely wired). I just can't see the point in either a.) buying 2 pcmcia cards for their current prices, one 802.11 and one regular 10/100mbps, or b.) buying an 802.11 card and base station, or even a second card for peer to peer . Any suggestions? Anyone else in my position?" Interesting thought. I'm sure there are hardware manufacturers making these. Has anyone tried some of these out? What were your experiences, especially with regards to OS support?

2 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. I don't think so by kevin42 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have just about every 802.11b card ever made sitting on my desk at work because I wrote an 802.11 stack for some hardware my company makes and I needed to test compatability. I've never seen what you are looking for though.

    It doesn't surprise me since the RF part of 802.11 cards takes a lot of room, and there isn't room for an antenna and a dongle or rj45 connector. I'd reccomend you do what I've done...eject one card and plug the other in. :)

  2. Two is much easier by Controlio · · Score: 3, Informative

    This is one of those situations where you have to look past the cost. Ease of use is the factor here, not to mention the fact that no one knows of a combo RF/Ethernet card. I know I've never heard of such an animal.

    I do what you do, but on a larger scale. I have "accumulated" 4 ethernet cards. One a 10baseT/2 with a dongle, one a 100baseT with a connector built in, another 100baseT with a dongle, and an Orinoco (Lucent) 802.11b card. It is by FAR easier to have a different card for each network configuration.

    You've got to be asking yourself, why? This is easy. Every one of my networks has a night-and-day difference from the other ones. One network is DHCP, another won't reply unless my MAC and IP are set properly, the wireless is told to only answer a specific IP... and so on. Anyways, in my laptop, the OS knows each network configuration, simply by assigning a new network configuration to each piece of hardware. As soon as you plug it in, it just works. No reconfig, no additional programs... plug the SOB in, and you're networking.

    And yes, I've tried all of those icky little Netswitcher-type programs, and none of them work as well as just simply having different hardware for each config. Once it's configured, even a monkey could make it work. It may not be cost effective, but it's reliable as all hell.