USB LAN Card - Your Perfect Solution

Why is wireless USB adapter preferred compared with wireless PCI adapter? You have two choices in adding wireless adapter for desktop computers, wireless PCI adapter or wireless USB adapter. Even though in some cases you should choose wireless PCI adapter to install in the desktop computers, wireless USB adapter is preferred by most users. Why?

With wireless PCI adapter, you cannot use it with your laptop computers. But with wireless USB adapter you can install either to the desktop or laptop computers with available USB port. Besides, installing wireless USB adapter is easier as opposed to wireless PCI adapter. You need to open the computer case if you required installing the PCI adapter into the available PCI slot of your desktop computers. With USB, you just need to insert it into the available USB port and driver installation.

Secondly, USB adapter helps you troubleshoot the connectivity problem by swapping the proven-work adapter to the computer in problem. If you have wireless connectivity issue with your laptop, you can swap the good USB adapter and tested it if the adapter is the problem. Lastly, wireless USB adapter supports the next generation of the Superspeed USB 3.0 which the speed is 10x as fast as the USB 2.0 port.

There are various models of wireless USB adapters available in the market you can purchase, the standard adapter with 2dBi gain and high gain or high power wireless USB adapters.

Alfa AWUS051NH

Alfa AWUS051NH is high power 500mW wireless USB adapter which is dual band support. It delivers the speed up to 150Mbps in 2.4GHz band and up to 300Mbps in 5GHz band. It is wireless 802.11 a/b/g/n compliant device.

• Dual band either 2.4GHz or 5GHz band with MIMO antenna technology
• Can operate in Ad-Hoc or infrastructure modes
• High speed transfer TX data rate up to 150 Mbps
• High speed transfer RX data rate up to 300 Mbps
• Supports wireless data encryption with 64/128-bit WEP, WPA, WPA2, TKIP, AES
• Supports PC and Mac

You can use this adapter to connect to the network with better signal strength and longer range coverage. It is ideal to deploy in area where the signal strength is not good enough.

 Amped UA600Ex

This is a professional series of high power 600mW wireless USB adapter by Amped Wireless. The adapter is ideal for deployment in harsh environment such as workshops, warehouses or mining industries where small offices are located in long distances from the main office.

Main features:

• Powered by wireless 802.11n and is 802.11b/g compliant
• High power with 600Mw amplifier with directional antenna gain, 12x of standard adapters
• indoor or outdoor deployment and is weatherproof
• wireless security WPA/WPA2 support

Wireless USB high gain adapters are ideal for long range Wi-Fi solution such as industrial or outdoor projects where small offices in long distances need to connect to the network.

By Ki Grinsing

See also:

• Wireless network cards – knowing some types of wireless network cards
• Network hardware – types of network hardware, connection standards
• Layer 3 Switches - introducing Layer 3 Standards and GSM7324 NETGEAR layer 3 Switch
• 24 Port Switch - introducing Cisco SR2024 Gigabit Switch – a high speed Gigabit Autosensing