Warm, Orinoco Gold 802.11b Wireless PC Card $44.99

[theanimala]

I actually saw and purchased this deal last night before reading about it at another site.

Anyway, TechDep has this card for $44.99 at their site with over 2000 in stock. Ground shipping is $6.75, for a total price shipped of 51.74. Text

Amazon has the same card listed at the same price, but with a slightly higher shipping. I tried to order it from there but according to the site you cannot use any coupons when purchasing through another merchant of theirs, so I went with the TechDepot offer. Some people are saying you can use the coupon, so if you know how please post it.

It's good to see the price of these cards dropping. At $51.74 shipped, it is quite a bit cheaper then most of the B-rate cards out there.

 

[Souka]

It's a great card. The best card for range and power usage we've had at my company. Even has option of attaching an external antenne.

Expect 802.11b prices to drop once 802.11a sales pick up. Kinda like USB 1.1 moving to USB 2.0.....the 1.1 prices drop quickly.

 

[Chief Wahoo]

This must have been a price mistake since it is now selling for $74.99 with free shipping. Not so hot now....

 

[theanimala]

Crap, sorry guys, I guess once people started buying they raised the price back up. I have a print out of the order and original webpage if it helps anyone. Hopefully they still ship it out at the old price.

 

[Fritzo]

Originally posted by: Souka
It's a great card. The best card for range and power usage we've had at my company. Even has option of attaching an external antenne.

Expect 802.11b prices to drop once 802.11a sales pick up. Kinda like USB 1.1 moving to USB 2.0.....the 1.1 prices drop quickly.

802.11a and 11b have different applications. 11a has a lot shorter range than 11b, and 11b equipment is a LOT more affordable. 11a is mostly being used by businesses, where 11b is becoming popular with home users because most people use their wireless connection for Internet access only. The fastest DSL or cable connects only use 3mbps, so 11 is more than enough. The near 100mbps performance of 11a is good for transfering LAN files and such----not something that most home users do too often.

On a related note, Orinoco (Lucent) now has a dual mode 11a/11b card out.

 

[IgoByte]

Originally posted by: Fritzo

Originally posted by: Souka
It's a great card. The best card for range and power usage we've had at my company. Even has option of attaching an external antenne.

Expect 802.11b prices to drop once 802.11a sales pick up. Kinda like USB 1.1 moving to USB 2.0.....the 1.1 prices drop quickly.

802.11a and 11b have different applications. 11a has a lot shorter range than 11b, and 11b equipment is a LOT more affordable. 11a is mostly being used by businesses, where 11b is becoming popular with home users because most people use their wireless connection for Internet access only. The fastest DSL or cable connects only use 3mbps, so 11 is more than enough. The near 100mbps performance of 11a is good for transfering LAN files and such----not something that most home users do too often.

On a related note, Orinoco (Lucent) now has a dual mode 11a/11b card out.

How good is the combo card, and what exactly are its benefits?
Also, do people actually see 802.11a sales going up? I personally don't see a need for it as of yet, and I actually think that it might even get phased out. . .

 

[Fritzo]

I deal with a lot of wireless equipment, and here's what I see:

802.11b is hot right now because it's cheap, has gotten fairly reliable, and provides ample bandwidth for what people want it for...Internet access.

802.11a is popular with corporations because they can get high speed LAN access without having to pay someone to run expensive CAT5e cable everywhere. The problem is you literally need an access point every 50' to keep the speed up (11a range is only rated 300', while 11b is rated to 1500'. Cut that by 2/3's for real world performance.)

A dual mode 11a/11b card would let a "traveling salesman" type connect to any wireless network no matter what type it is.