Quick Airport question.

D

Dinkmeister

Registered
Do airport cards work with non airport basestations?

I'm moving in with a friend who has a wireless network setup (a pc network) and I was wondering if an airport card would work :)

-Dinkmeister
 
While I have no personal knowledge on this particular issue, it is my understanding that, yes, you can do so provided that the non-airport base station uses the same 802.11b wireless standard which Airport uses. You will not be able to have the same 128bit security features (unless the station offers the same) and/or some other services (such as use of the Admin Utility).

"AirPort is based on the IEEE 802.11b wireless standard and is Wi-Fi certified for interoperability with other 802.11-compliant products (including PCs). That means you can use your AirPort card at thousands of wirelessly-enabled locations — including airports, coffeeshops and at least 90,000 hotel rooms in the U.S. alone.
 
If you’re running a network of PC users, all you need is one AirPort-enabled Apple computer (iBook, PowerBook G4, iMac or Power Mac G4) to set up your base of wireless operations. . . ."
 
the answer is '95% yes'.

I have a mixed assortment of stuff (Wavelan cards, Airport equipped
laptops, Airport base stations, Lucent basestations, etc) and they all
play together very well.

Sometimes, in odd circumstances, you have to play hard, particularly if
your using WEP encryption. Different hashing styles of thhe keys and
be annoying. Another example is that if you have a Lucent AP base station
(a corporate level unit), it has 4 'keyslots'. If your using anything other
than keyslot #1, most laptops cant find it cause the laptop drivers dont
uunderstand that they have to use a different slot.

Little stuff like that. Really though, you should be fine. That is the
point of 'WiFi compliance' and 802.11b standards, interoperability.
 
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