Linksys halves price of wireless routers with MIMO

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 20 September 2005 14:47

Business IT - Technology

Linksys has added a new model to its SRX (speed range and expansion) family of Wireless-G Broadband Routers using MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technology to increase increased speed and range.

The product has gone on sale in the US for $US99, half the price of the company's first MIMO enhanced wireless router, introduced earlier this year. Australian availability and pricing have not yet been announced, but the head of Linksys Australia, Graeme Reardon, told ITWire that Australia would be first to get another new model which has an in-built ADSL port, so it does not require an additional ADSL modem to connect to a broadband service. ADSL is less prevalent in the US, so demand for this functionality is not as great as in Australia, he said.

Linksys claims that the WRT54GX2 "has the potential to double the range of wireless coverage compared to using Wireless-G alone" and that when used with its MIMO-enabled WPC54GX Wireless-G notebook adaptor or the WMP54GX Wireless-G PCI adaptor the WRT54GX2 may yield up to six times better performance than standard Wireless-G products. This performance enhancement is greatest at the outskirts of the coverage area.