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User profile for user: eww
eww Author
User level: Level 9
53,192 points

Does orig. Airport card support WPA/WPA2?

Can a Mac equipped with an original Airport card (802.11b) connect to a WPA- or WPA2-protected network via a third-party router? (Any router — my question doesn't concern a particular router, but is more general in nature.) If so, are there minimum OS or other software version requirements for WPA/WPA2 support with the old card? Is there an Apple article that specifies the relevant requirements and procedures? My repeated searches for one have been fruitless, and this question comes up regularly in some forums I monitor daily where I'd like to be able to answer it confidently.

TiBook 1GHz/1G/120G; PTProG3 500MHz/768M/160G, Mac OS X (10.3.x), film and flatbed scanners, projector, graphics tablet, laser and photo printers

Posted on Jan 20, 2008 8:23 PM

2 replies
User profile for user: Henry B.
Henry B.
User level: Level 9
78,731 points

Jan 20, 2008 9:03 PM in response to eww

A Mac equipped with an original Airport card supports only WPA, not WPA2.

Verification of the fact that the original Airport card supports WPA is found at:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=107795

A Mac equipped with an Airport Extreme card (or newer) is required for WPA2 support.

I don't know of a Knowledgebase article that specifically states an Airport Extreme card is required for WPA2 support. However, that requirement is clearly stated in the older versions of Airport update software that added WPA2 support to OS X. See for example:

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airport42formacosx1033.html

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Does orig. Airport card support WPA/WPA2?

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