alternative to pcmcia?

[evilstevo3147]

I will be going next year to UTD (university of texas at dallas) where i will get the privilage of using a campus-wide wireless internet connection (T1, hell yeah). The problem is this. The laptop I am currently looking at only features one pcmcia slot. All of the wireless cards for laptops that i am aware of are pcmcia, but i want to use the Echo Indigo because i am very interested in high quality sound. The Echo Indigo is, of course, a pcmcia card and that is the only option i have as far as it goes. So, are there any alternatives to pcmcia as far as wireless networking goes? what about adding additional pcmcia bays? Thank you very much.

~Stephen

 

[Unolocogringo]

there are many USB wireless adaptors. From the size of a pack of gum to the size of a pack of cards.

I aint signing nothing!!!

 

[evilstevo3147]

Thanks for the post. I hate to be a bit picky but if its USB I assume it will be pretty much "loose," which means i'm stuck with a laptop with stuff dangling from it or gluing the thing to the side or something. My other concern is would having my wireless ethernet card running from a USB port slow my internet connection? Again I'll be using a T1

 

[Unolocogringo]

Another option . If you have an ethernet port is the Linksys WET11. Although designed for PS2 and XBOX it will work for a computer just as well.

I aint signing nothing!!!

 

[Unolocogringo]

Another option . If you have an ethernet port is the Linksys WET11. Although designed for PS2 and XBOX it will work for a computer just as well. Either way you go you will have a wire coming out of the laptop.

I aint signing nothing!!!

 

[jihiggs]

a usb nic will give you about 1 mbits of through put. a t-1 is 1.5 mbits. but if that t-1 is shared you will never see 1.5 mbits. it will probly be fairly slow if more than 100 people use it for downloads. and if they have a lot of people use it, they probly throttle your connection.

my computer is so fast, it completes an endless loop in less than 4 seconds!

 

[kwebb68]

Uh, no. The 1.1 USB bus is 12 Mbps, or the equivalent of 1.25 MB, or megaBYTES per second. Not that you'll see all of that but the USB bus is plenty for an 802.11b card, assuming you don't have a buttload of usb devices requiring resources at the same time.

A T-1 is pitiful for a college campus, unless your campus is extremely small, so it's nothing to get to jazzed about if that really is all the school has. I'd imagine it has more bandwidth than that. Many broadband cable solutions offer better downstream throughput.
So you only have one PCMCIA slot on your laptop? If that is the case, and you want the slot filled with another card then a USB client is your best alternative. You will have to lug it around but it's better than lugging a workgroup bridge like the WET11 around campus. Not by much but given the two, I'd go USB as you can get those with a pretty small footprint.