Out of the box, the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) supports the slower, first generation, widely available 802.11b network protocol, and the less-robust WEP wireless security protocol.

However, according to some discussion in the Sony Playstation Discussion Boards, the PSP apparently has a Marvell 88W8010 RF transceiver chip, which supposedly supports both 802.11b and its newer, smarter cousin 802.11g. The problem is, Sony hasn't enabled the "g" protocol.

I'm hardly an expert on the differences between the two, but I do know that 802.11g is faster and has better security, and that most people now believe that there's only fool's security in the 802.11b WEP system (that is, it's quite easy for someone with the desire to hack into a WEP-based network).

Now, a few comments from Wikipedia to add to the story...

"While 802.11g held the promise of higher throughput, actual results were degraded by a number of factors: conflict with 802.11b-only devices (see above), exposure to the same interference sources as 802.11b, limited channelization (only 3 fully non-overlapping channels like 802.11b) and the fact that the higher data rates of 802.11g are often more susceptible to interference than 802.11b, causing the 802.11g device to reduce the data rate to effectively the same rates used by 802.11b."

and

"Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is a scheme to secure wireless networks (WiFi). Because a wireless network broadcasts messages using radio, it is particularly susceptible to eavesdropping. WEP was intended to provide comparable confidentiality to a traditional wired network, hence the name. Several serious weaknesses were identified by cryptanalysts, and WEP was superseded by Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) in 2003, and then by the full IEEE 802.11i standard (also known as WPA2) in 2004. Despite the weaknesses, WEP provides a level of security that can deter casual snooping."

I hope this is helpful and that your brother is mollified by this information. If someone's gotten a PSP to work with either a WPA or 802.11g system, please do let us know, but at this point, I don't believe it's possible.