- [Instructor] We'll begin with communications,
starting with cellular cards,
better known as wireless WAN cards or WWAN.
Some laptops and other mobile devices
come with cellular access built in.
Others might need it as an add-on.
In order to connect to 3G, 4G, LTE, 5G, and other networks,
a laptop would need to either have an internal device
or an external device.
Though you might see many PCI Express,
M.2 is the preferred form factor
as of the recording of this video in 2018.
Here, we have an M.2 card that allows for 4G access.
Sometimes you'll find these pre-installed
on business laptops.
In other cases, you might need to add one.
This particular type of M.2 is a 2230,
meaning it's 22 millimeters wide
by 30 millimeters long.
This is common for laptops,
but it's still important to check the type of slot
in the system and make sure that the card you wish to use
is compatible because you might also encounter 2242, 2262,
or even 2280 in laptops.
And 2280 is usually the standard in PCs,
but you'll find that on some high-end laptops as well.
And by the way, M.2 used to be called NGFF,
next generation form factor.
But because there's always something new coming out,
the term next generation is relative
and it becomes quickly obsolete, so it was changed to M.2.
Sometimes you might need a combo card
that can handle WWAN and WLAN, handle both of those,
especially if there's only one M.2 slot in the laptop,
which is common for laptops as well as PCs.
However, if you're not allowed to remove
a current WLAN card, local area network,
then an external solution will have to be found.
For example, we could use something USB-based like this.
Here, we have a device that not only acts
as a cellular gateway for a laptop,
but can also act as a mobile hotspot
for other mobile devices, quite often as many as 10.
Or if you have an older laptop,
one that was manufactured before say 2005 or so,
then you might have to go
with one of the credit card-sized devices.
ExpressCard is one option if the laptop is actually equipped
with an ExpressCard slot and that comes in two sizes.
You've got /34, which is 34 millimeters wide,
and /54, which is 54 millimeters wide.
Before that was the PCMCIA standard, also known as PC Card.
It's unlikely that you'll see or use these technologies,
but on older laptops,
check the side for a credit card-sized slot
and you might have to go with that option.
But generally, you're gonna wanna go with the USB
or internally the M.2.
And here's a tech tip for you.
Watch out for older technologies and their devices.
The trend, as of the recording of this video,
is for companies to charge a fortune
for these legacy cellular devices.
It's often better to upgrade the laptop
or upgrade to a new laptop
as opposed to paying these exorbitant fees
that usually result in poor performance anyway,
something that's gonna run like this on USB 3.0 or higher
is gonna be light-years ahead of something like this.
So watch out for that
because companies will charge a lot of money
for those older devices and it really isn't worth it.
Okay, so there's a little bit about cellular cards
and WWAN connectivity.