Thunderbolt to Ethernet vs. USB to Ethernet

I recommend the Apple USB Modem Does your Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet adapter support FAXING? I think not!

 

The Thunderbolt adapter is 1000Mb, the USB ones are 100Mb.

 

Thunderbolt ethernet allows for the full gigabit. Apple's USB Ethernet is limited to 100mbps.

Only reason I'd take the USB ethernet is if I wanted to use a displayport monitor and didn't have two thunderbolt ports.

 

If you know what you're doing, you can pretty easily hide the router from most detection routines. I spoofed a PCI NIC's Mac address, incremented the TTL by one, and did not broadcast my SSID. Never got caught.

 

That said, I wish they'd make a Thunderbolt 56k modem You know how it is, USB 2.0 is too much of a bottleneck nowadays.

 

I would try a router (with DD-WRT firmware) in repeater mode or client first. For me it would seem to be a more versatile option as it'll provide wifi access more than just your one laptop.

 

Pretty much exact same wording my school used.

The main reason for the restrictions is because of the potential for rogue DHCP servers. Basically, if someone plugs the ethernet from the school into one of the LAN ports instead of the WAN ports, the router will try to assign an IP to all the computers on the school network. Which just results in chaos.

I don't think it's a bandwidth issue because most schools have a bandwidth limit. I think mine was 10GB/week IIRC. And for whatever reason, they didn't meter you if you used Wifi though. My friend was lucky enough to have a dorm in a really strong WiFi location - He would regularly pull 50mbps down and have no bandwidth restrictions.

 

I'm going to be a freshman and yeah, college dorm internet sucks. Big time. Really anywhere on my campus except for a couple of buildings have horrrrible bandwith. There's just too many people. Even when wired the speeds were still terrible. However, I did also hide my network and never had one complaint or anything said about it, so go ahead and bend the rules. Y'all are right in that the limitation is strictly there so people can't abuse more than one connection for those that actually need it (when you have a big assignment due the next day and your DL speed is .8 mbps, it hurts...), but if everyone else is doing it...

 

Actually, there is an available ASIX's AX88179 USB 3.0 to Gigabit solution, you can consider using on MBA now. You can search and purchase the AX88179 USB 3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet dongles from Internet and get the Mac OSX driver from ASIX web site (http://www.asix.com.tw/download.php?...il&PItemID=131). FYI.