Pre-Standard 802.11n Coming Soon, Vendor Says

The first WLAN products using next-generation antenna technology have started shipping and pre-standard 802.11n wireless LAN products will ship later this year, a developer of wireless chipsets and software said Monday.

Airgo Networks, which develops WLAN chipsets and software, said that four of its OEM customers are developing WLAN products that use its True MIMO multiple in, multiple out (MIMO) antenna technology. Those vendors are SOHOware, Planex, Askey and Taiyo Yuden.

Of those vendors, SOHOware and Planex have just started shipping products with MIMO technology. MIMO will be an intrinsic part of the 802.11n, which is not expected to be ratified by the IEEE until at least late 2005. That standard will deliver Ethernet-like speeds over wireless networks.

Airgo said its OEM customers will start shipping the first pre-standard 802.11n products later this year.

The 802.11n standard will provide theoretical data speeds equivalent to wired Ethernet networks, which is about twice the speed of the current generation of 802.11g products. MIMO enables multiple data streams on a single radio channel, which results both in faster throughput and longer range.The forthcoming standard is expected to encourage use of wireless LANs for applications such as voice-over-IP and streaming multimedia.