Wi-Fi access with a Mac?

luckat

I've got a Mac PowerBook with a wireless card. Can I use this to get wireless access to the internet, and if so, how?

Do I need to subscribe to a different ISP? Do I have to buy other equipment than the wireless card? How do I connect?

Urban Weigl

First off, this is probably the wrong forum.

That said, you can use this equipment to connect to a group such as IrishWAN (www.irishwan.org), if you buy a pigtail, cable and antenna. Without an antenna, it won't get you further than 1.5km max (I have tested these to about 1.2km without any problems).

The external antenna, cable and pigtail will set you back about 50-100 euros. See www.irishwan.org. Note that IrishWAN don't sell internet access, but you can share someone elses connection over their network.

As far as wireless ISP's go, try www.irishbroadband.ie, www.digiweb.ie, www.irishwisp.net and some others (too lazy to list them all, sorry).

Ripwave

Originally posted by luckat
I've got a Mac PowerBook with a wireless card. Can I use this to get wireless access to the internet, and if so, how?

Do I need to subscribe to a different ISP? Do I have to buy other equipment than the wireless card? How do I connect?

Having a wireless card in your Mac is pretty much irrelvant to getting access to the Internet. The card is designed for accessing a LAN, so unless there happens to be a Wireless Access Point that's connected to the Internet within a couple of hundred meters of your laptop, then it won't buy you anything. (There are some wireless "hotspots" in a few hotels around the country, but that's probably not much help).

IrishWAN is a voluntary organization of people who are using this type of equipment to share access to the Internet. But in most cases, you'll have to put up some sort of antenna to take advantage of an IrishWAN node, if there's one in your neighbourhood. If you end up going for a commercial ISP, then the fact that you've got a wireless card will be pretty much irrelevant - wheter you go with DSL or one of the wireless options or NTL cable internet, you'll use either a USB or an ethernet interface to connect to the appropriate modem. If you want to use a wireless "modem" or router, such as the DLink 604+ then you can use the wireless card in your laptop to connect to your internet connection, but the internet connection will still be a wired connection.

sceptre

Moving to Wireless

(though those folks on the Mac board might be of some help if you don't get an answer there)

yallingup

A better forum might be Wireless/Mobile. But anyways ... If you're talking about wireless at home, you'll need either a base station (doesn't have to be an Apple one) or wireless card in another machine (say, a desktop) which is hooked up by wires to Net. The base station or the desktop do the connecting to-the-net stuff and your laptop is easily configured to get the net connection from that.

As Urban says, you could also do the wireless ISP stuff, but it sounds as if you want the simple solution.

You don't need a new ISP if you go about it the way I describe.

luckat

Thanks for moving the link, whoever did it - I don't know the forums that well.

If I get an Airport Base Station would that work the same way as the pigtail antenna etc?

Sorry to ask such newboid questions, but I'm completely new to wireless. The most I've ever used is a wireless keyboard and mouse.

If I go with IrishWAN, would I continue to use my current email address and ISP?

luckat

People have warned me about security - what are they talking about?

yallingup

Re AirPort Base Station (or any brand base station): All it does is redistribute a standard internet connection (dialup or broadband) wirelessly. It gets an internet connection either from your broadband modem or dialup modem (built in to the AirPort one). Then your PowerBook connects to the base station and picks up the net from there.

As for security, yes, wireless can be insecure, if you don't hide your network (and even if you do). It's not really a worry for most home users, though.

theciscokid

theres plenty of free public access wi-fi spots in dublin

try the warren beatty library behind dublin castle, they need to tweak it a bit, cause last time i was doen there it wasn't as fast..

also "the front lounge" has an excellent service, and the chick behind the bar knew exactly what i was talking about when i enquired - this one has been running for about 3 mths

free as well

apparently the "globe" has one too, but the staff looked at me like i'd two heads when i asked, best bet is to bring one in and see!

luckat

Free access???? Hmmmmm.... Alcoholism beckons.

What about the suburbs?

theking

The Great Sourthern by the Airport has one. And the Callaghan Hotels in town mostly have one.