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ac2102

macrumors member
Original poster
May 12, 2003
96
0
Bristol - England
While enjoying a cup of coffee sitting in the forum of my University building, i noticed signs being put up advertising the introduction of a wireless 'Nomadic' network to the computer system. :) Great, i thought. The perfect time to get airport so i can surf at my leisure! However, upon further investigation, i found this:

It is possible to connect MacOS 10.2 systems to the roaming wireless service but by using an alternative wireless adapter, not Apple's standard AirPort wireless cards. This is due to a technical limitation of AirPort (Apple provide PPPoE in AirPort base stations but not AirPort cards).

What (if anything) does this mean? Any help on the matter would be much appreciated. Also, could airport Extreme help? :confused:
 
The Airport webpage lists this:

Compatibility
Products based on IEEE 802.11g draft specification
Wi-Fi certified IEEE 802.11b products (4)
Mac computers and Windows-based PCs (6)
IEEE 802.3, TCP/IP, NAT, DHCP, UDP, FTP, PPPoE, L2TP, DNS, IPSec/VPN Passthrough, SNMP, PPTP
America Online (7)
Cisco LEAP client support to connect to Cisco LEAP access points.

It doesn't really say if that's for card or base station. They could very well be right, but it's worth a shot-- i'm pretty sure you could return the airport card if it didn't work. i would be surprised if the cards didn't support it, but it sounds like they did their homework--

perhaps someone else could elaborate more...

pnw
 
Why would you need PPPoE if you're on a network? I thought PPPoE was for modems not wireless cards.
 
Re: Airport not combatible with network? HELP!

Originally posted by ac2102
While enjoying a cup of coffee sitting in the forum of my University building, i noticed signs being put up advertising the introduction of a wireless 'Nomadic' network to the computer system. :) Great, i thought. The perfect time to get airport so i can surf at my leisure! However, upon further investigation, i found this:

It is possible to connect MacOS 10.2 systems to the roaming wireless service but by using an alternative wireless adapter, not Apple's standard AirPort wireless cards. This is due to a technical limitation of AirPort (Apple provide PPPoE in AirPort base stations but not AirPort cards).

What (if anything) does this mean? Any help on the matter would be much appreciated. Also, could airport Extreme help? :confused:
Apple's standard Airport wireless cards are standard Wi-Fi cards. They use the same Lucent standard chips as all other standard Wi-Fi cards. If Airport cards don't work on the University's roaming network, it is because of decisions made by the University, not some deficiency in Apple's hardware offering. The fact that they are using PPPoE calls everything else they have done into question.
 
Cheers for your help! I always figured that it was a technical limitation with the University's set up as i couldnt see Apple wantonly leaving out something like that! Il get on to the university and see if they will talk to me now; up til now theyve ignored me! Cheers all the same.
 
i have a friend at uni in london; all their halls of residence are networked BUT they don't allow non-windows systems onto the network for "security reasons" (lol); could it be a similar tactic being used in your case? Unlikely going from what you've said, but still a possibility. Can you get online using straightforward ethernet?
 
Straghtforward ethernet is no problem, but only from fixed points: Wireless would be anywhere in the whole building (they have a number of ports). Still, never mind, maybe i can convince them to buy an Airport Extreme Base station!
Cheers again for all your help.:p
 
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