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I want to know if laptops have ONLY ONE Network Interface card or they have multiple NIC cards for a specific medium? (for example, wi-fi, Ethernet etc.)

Can anyone please help me understand this?

CuriousMind
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  • Please help me understand this, I am novice (and not in networking as such) and trying to clarify my doubts. – CuriousMind Nov 19 '16 at 16:52
  • Its really hard to understand what you wish to ask. Can you maybe edit your question to make it more clear? Did you wish to buy an additional NIC for an Laptop? – BastianW Nov 19 '16 at 16:57
  • @BastianW: I have edited the question , hopefully now it makes sense. – CuriousMind Nov 19 '16 at 17:03
  • Common sense. Why would you put multiple physical NIC into one laptop when 99% of the time you only need one (if even, thanks to wifie) and USB easily handles the special cases? Wasting money with no benefit is not how things work. – TomTom Nov 19 '16 at 17:04
  • Please add some explanation for understanding. Does it mean the same NIC card can communicate with multiple mediums? – CuriousMind Nov 19 '16 at 17:06
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    Whether it's one card or multiple doesn't really matter. Plenty of modern laptops won't have this as a separate physical "card" anyways. Just find a laptop with Wifi and an Ethernet port in its featureset. – ceejayoz Nov 19 '16 at 17:34

1 Answers1

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Notebooks are normally build for consumers, most of these consumers do not have any need to use multiple NICs. Most notebooks can therefore connected to one LAN and/or one WLAN. However you can buy for example an additional Express Card (e.g. the EC2000S 2-port Gigabit ExpressCard Ethernet Adapter). Which might help you in your situation.

BastianW
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  • Thanks for your reply. My doubt is do these consumer notebooks have only one NIC card which can connect to both LAN as well as WIFI? – CuriousMind Nov 19 '16 at 17:14
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    @CuriousMind What are you trying to solve? The number of cards doesn't really matter. What matters is if it has an Ethernet port and a Wifi antenna. – ceejayoz Nov 19 '16 at 17:26
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    I am just trying to understand, I am under the impression that a laptop (for example) has only ONE NIC card (and which is capable of connecting to one type of network) and so how does a laptop is capable of connecting to network over multiple mediums. – CuriousMind Nov 19 '16 at 17:39
  • I think your question with the NICs is somehow related to your other question [here](http://superuser.com/questions/1147593/connecting-different-home-laptops-with-private-address-and-at-the-same-time-to-c). So what you might with to implement is a kind of "gateway". A PC can have a connection between a private LAN (your Home LAN)and a public LAN (The Internet). This is called ["routing"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routing). – BastianW Nov 19 '16 at 21:56