Dual Band, Dual Radio Mini-PCI 802.11n Support?
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I just saw this interesting little mini-pci card while shopping for a laptop mini-pci replacement. In the past you need two cards and two slots on an embedded board to cover both bands, but this little card can do both bands simultaneously. The "WMIR-200N – 802.11n draft a/g 2.4/5.8Ghz dual band (dual radio) Mini PCI Module, Ralink RT2860+2850, 2T3R " at: http://www.sparklan.com/product_details.php?prod_id=187
It looks very interesting and costs a mere $50 US.
It's based on ralink drivers & claims windows & linux compatibility, no mention of bsd. I may get one to test it out on a clarkconnect install, since it's CentOS (Linux) w/ a pci to mini-pci adapter. Anyhow sure wish such a card is supported on FreeBSD/pfsense as I can simply drill three holes on an alix board and I'd have dual-band draft 802.11n support. bonding the two frequencies together on both ends will result in some serious bandwidth at a very affordable price... Just dreaming I guess.. Wouldn't imagine putting such a dual radio in a laptop as it'll drain the battery in record time.
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I couldn't find any mention of support for the Ralink 2860 in the FreeBSD 7.2 hardware notes at http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.2R/hardware.html there I think the card you're interested in is not yet supported in pfSense.
I don't know if anyone is working on support for that chipset.
It probably wouldn't do any harm to send an email to FAE@ralinktech.com.tw asking about FreeBSD support for that chipset.
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802.11n wont be supported until FreeBSD 8.0 (at the earliest).
So the earliest pfSense version you might see support is 2.0 -
I see… It's also interesting to see it for the first time, for me, where a single mini-pci card can have two radios operating independently and simultaneously, and at such low cost.
