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I know you can share a Mac's wired connection easily as a wireless hotspot, but can it be done wirelessly?
I was just reading that one can do this on Windows with a single wireless card. In other words, they receive the wireless signal with a wireless card and then share it out using the same - single antenna - card.
An example of this would be at an airport where one person purchases a wireless connection, then can share it out to others wirelessly.
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Nope, would require 2 cards.
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I think it's possible to do it, tho I haven't looked into it lately.
Waaaay back in the days before cable modem routers were commonly available, I ran IPNetRouter to make a virtual interface, permitting me to use a Mac as a router and NAT server without requiring a second Ethernet port. It might be possible to do the same thing on a modern Mac with WiFi.
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When I look in Snow Leopard's Sharing pane under Internet Sharing (on my MBP) the only choices to share out the signal I get via AirPort is Ethernet or FireWire.
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M A V I C -
Even if you could do this, I don't think you'd want to, except in limited circumstances. At best you'd cut the connection speed in half, and with overhead I suspect it would be much less. This is what happens when you use an AirPort Express in Wireless Distribution System (WDS) mode.
There are reasonably cheap USB WiFi cards which would probably be the best alternative. A separate card would ensure that you operate the Mac's network on a non-interfering channel too.
Good luck.
- Winston
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Doc wrote:
I think it's possible to do it, tho I haven't looked into it lately.
Waaaay back in the days before cable modem routers were commonly available, I ran IPNetRouter to make a virtual interface, permitting me to use a Mac as a router and NAT server without requiring a second Ethernet port. It might be possible to do the same thing on a modern Mac with WiFi.
The first AirPort Base Station (Graphite) could also do this too. However, it caused problems because the second network was not really behind a firewall, and could screw up others on the network it was attached to.
A wireless card could in theory switch channels and connection settings for the second network, but as I mentioned above, there would be some overhead in doing this which would likely slow things down a lot.
- W
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Yes, it can be handy. I have done it with my PowerBook G4 a couple of times. Because its built-in WiFi is so poor I have to use a PC Card WiFi adapter to get a decent signal unless I am very close to the wireless source. This gives me the option to share on the internal card.
It's too bad Apple has moved away from the PC Card/ExpressCard slot in favor of SD card slots. The former were a lot more flexible.
- W
