Wireless network interface cards (WNIC) are currently moving from hardwired devices to autonomic software. This paper proposes a new rationale for the design of WNIC that i) takes into account the need to integrate an ever increasing number of network features, ii) supports the traceability of requirements in system development and iii) allows flexibility at the software architecture level. Our solution relies on the FODA (feature oriented domain analysis) and FORM (feature oriented reuse method) engineering methods to bridge the gap between the systemspsila specification and implementation. As an example, we show how a model of the 802.11 standard based on this method can reproduce the features of a particular channel access protocol or be extended to the 802.11g standard.