someone explain network cards for me...

A

apathrev

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*I apologize beforehand for the off-topicness. I wasn't quite sure where this thread would fall under.

I just got a new Toshiba Satellite laptop computer, and I'm still exploring around its capabilities, but one option I've considered is getting a wireless Network Card for it. I don't quite fully understand how this works, though. My assumption is you get a network card, sign up for a service plan, put your SIM card in the wireless card, insert the network card, and you have internet wherever service is available. Am I close?
 
The problem with wireless Internet is that it can be leeched by bandwidth thieves. Companies are developing new ways of blocking the leechers from stealing bandwidth.
 
Let's clarify a bunch of things here.

Standard "wireless cards" are cards that communicate using the IEEE 802.1 a/b/g protocols, which are basically used for local wireless networking up to 30 meters from an internet "access point." This is commonly referred to as "wifi."

Wifi in itself is not something you "sign up" for. If you have a high speed internet connection in your home, you can purchase a router with wireless connectivity (which usually, but not always, has connections where you can plug in a standard wire which you then connect to a computer) or an access point (which is simply a box that broadcasts and receives wireless signals).

I'll see if I can put in some examples in another post.

When you see "T-Mobile Hotspot" or "Free Hotel Wifi" or "Local Coffee Wifi" or even "McDonald's Wifi" it's this above listed wireless method. Normally, the wireless access point broadcasts its signal to your laptop and lets your laptop know "Hey, you can connect here." Free Wifi is usually easy to confgure after you learn how to search for a wifi connection. However, when you're using a pay-for wifi service, you usually have to configure it a certain way beforehand with a program or a passcode. For example, McDonald's is offering wifi in select locations when you buy a meal, then that meal will come with a temporary code good for 1 or 2 hours. Usually it's pretty easy to find a unlimited wireless connection in just about every metropolitan city, usually in coffee or other hangout place, and sometimes even the city itself offers it downtown (I know St. Louis does this, and I'll cite the website later).

Another "wireless" system is a cellular service like Sprint's PCS connection. I'm not too familiar with any other system, but Sprint's PCS connection card is a wide area network. That means that you can use it in a bigger area, but you also usually have to pay for the minutes you use, and the speeds are much slower. Sure, you could be somewhere far away from civiliation, but there's no guarantee it'll work, and you'll be paying through the nose for it, and it's at this point still much slower than high speed internet. That is definitely a monthly subscription service. This service is also not compatible with wifi, so you can't use the same network card to get higher speeds in the above mentioned places.


I would strongly recommend getting Wifi, yes, but unless you have some pressing reason to pay through the nose for cellular networking, skip it.
 
My laptop has little wifi green symbol, and if it lights then theres internet connection.. if not on then its no internet accessible... so does it not need a card?
 
It sounds like it has WIFI built in.

When you get more advanced, other things you may want to do is set encryption at your house. That way, the data is secure. Another thing, at my house, I have set up my access point so that only certain computers can connect to it. That is for a more advanced user to do, but still isn't that hard to do.
 
dude, since you said your laptop is new, i believe it has built in wi fi card like prostock said. you dont need to get the wi fi card. if you are a tmobile subscriber, you can get 20 dollars per month for unlimited hotspot service. you need to download its own "Connection Manager" program. it is very useful that tells you where tmobile's hotspot is where you are nearby before u can connect into internet. - http://hotspot.t-mobile.com/

i used to be a tmobile hotspot subscriber for a year. it was worth to have it.

also you can use jiwire.com that tells you where hotspot is. mostly i can find free hotspots at some places such as restaurants. also you can SMS to jiwire and it would reply you a list of place with hotspot with the address. jiwire ph nbr is 466-36. if you know where you will be nearby. like you type " name of road, city, state, zip code" and it will reply you with name of place and its address that have hotspot. i use it all times. it is worth to find free hotspot. yea i am cheapstake. lol. you can find more information in there. good luck !
 
deafclimber said:
dude, since you said your laptop is new, i believe it has built in wi fi card like prostock said. you dont need to get the wi fi card. if you are a tmobile subscriber, you can get 20 dollars per month for unlimited hotspot service. you need to download its own "Connection Manager" program. it is very useful that tells you where tmobile's hotspot is where you are nearby before u can connect into internet. - http://hotspot.t-mobile.com/

i used to be a tmobile hotspot subscriber for a year. it was worth to have it.

also you can use jiwire.com that tells you where hotspot is. mostly i can find free hotspots at some places such as restaurants. also you can SMS to jiwire and it would reply you a list of place with hotspot with the address. jiwire ph nbr is 466-36. if you know where you will be nearby. like you type " name of road, city, state, zip code" and it will reply you with name of place and its address that have hotspot. i use it all times. it is worth to find free hotspot. yea i am cheapstake. lol. you can find more information in there. good luck !
Click to expand...

Thanks for letting me know :) so if I bring laptop wherever I have to go, I can look up on list..... I tried to get internet worked up at the Capitol last oct, but hopefully I will try again next time I go in Feb (for a advoacy day)...
 
Well, I can now throw my initial thoughts out the window. Yes, my laptop does have a built in wireless modem. I'm using it right now as matter of fact. Just last week, I was driving down the street, trying to pick up wireless signals.

Long shot, but is there any chance I can connect my Sidekick to my laptop and use it as a modem?
 
In order to disambiguate this topic, I'm going to answer the original question and attempt to answer the second one.

WiFi (aka wlan, wireless networking, et al) is a wireless network using the IEEE 802.11 standard in concurrance with the rest of the 802 protocol stack. 802.11a and 802.11b are amendmentd to the 802.11 standard to allow for communication at different frequencies. 802.11a uses 5.2 GHz, 802.11b uses 3.2 GHz. 802.11g introduced a new encoding model which greatly improved the performance of the encoding at 3.2 GHz, increasing the maximum WiFi speed to 52 Mbps. Hardware for 802.11g is thus backwards-compatible with 802.11b hardware, though both are incompatible with 802.11a.

Most new laptops have a 802.11g network card built in, and many have an 802.11a built in as well, thus allowing the computer to operate on both frequencies and at high speeds if available. Older laptops can incorporate this functionality through expansion hardware, usually connected through USB or PCMCIA/CardBus.


Celluar networks communicate by means other than WiFi. EDGE, GSM, GPRS, among others are protocols for wireless.

There *are* GSM/GPRS radio cards for computers to allow a laptop or other computer to connect to a celluar network, I have seen them before. You just need to buy them seperately. Remember to buy one for your computer's expansion bus. If your computer has a PCMCIA slot, buy a PCMCIA card. If it has a CardBus slot, buy a CardBus card.

After buying one, you would literally place your SIM card in it and you would be good to go.

apathrev said:
Long shot, but is there any chance I can connect my Sidekick to my laptop and use it as a modem?
Click to expand...

No. The sidekick, while sexy physically, is a very limiting device in terms of what can be done with it. Getting the sidekick's modem to work with your laptop would require you to do a lot of soldering and a lot of other work conforming with the bus standard for your computer. And your sidekick wouldn't be usable afterwards.
 
apathrev said:
Long shot, but is there any chance I can connect my Sidekick to my laptop and use it as a modem?
Click to expand...

That is usually called "tethering" your wireless to your laptop. Unfortunately for the Sidekick, this isn't possible.

The Sidekick is a very closed system -- very few people have the ability to write programs for it and get them distributed, which means that your choices for using your Sidekick to do anything more than just email and phone are very little. On top of that, T-Mobile doesn't encourage people to tether -- they actively discourage it because it uses more of the unlimited data, and they really don't want you literally use an UNLIMITED amount of data.

There are other phones that will do it (dunno for any T-Mobile phones) and there are services out there that actually encourage you to use phones meant for tethering (Sprint, for one, I'm aware will happily point you to the phones and accessories to make it possible).
 
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