what cards needed for broadband? PCMCIA and USB?

I am ordering broadband from BT with a wireless modem which I am hoping to install myself. Does anybody know what this involves? Is it just plugging it in and installing some software? Also to order on line I am being asked if I need a PMCCIA and a USB card. What do these cards do and how will I know if I already have then? I will be using a laptop for the broadband and I know that i have a GPRS card and I have used a USB memory stick before so does that mean I already have the USB card?
Thanks in advance!

You need a wireless receiver for your laptop, they come either as USB stick(can also be used in desktop computers) or PCMCIA card - your choice ... But before your order anything that costs money, try and find out if your Laptop is equipped with a wireless built in receiver. GPRs card is not usefull for a wireless network, it will only capture GPRS signal (Vodafone/O2)

Thanks for the quick response Happy harry. How will I find out if the laptop has a wireless built in receiver?

What is the make and model, how old ?

I just checked with my better half and apparently the laptop has a PCMCIA card. So I should be ok to use that for the wireless modem?

I presume that you mean an 802.11 wireless network adaptor and not a wireless "modem". If the choice is between PCMCIA/CardBus/PCCard and USB then it may be better to go for the latter because you can more easily reuse it with any other PCs/laptops with a USB port. On the other hand a PCMCIA/CardBus/PCCard adaptor might give better performance especially if your laptop is low spec and the PCMCIA/CardBus/PCCard adaptor does more work in hardware and uses less host computer resources compared to the USB. It depends on the specifics of all the hardware involved. If you can get the specific make/model details then post them here and/or Google for some reviews of them.

To check if your laptop has a wireless network card built run a hardware auditing/checking utility like Everest Lavalys Free Edition - e.g. from here.