Linksys' 802.11n products go on sale in Australia

Stuart Corner
Monday, 03 July 2006 19:47

Business IT - Technology

These products were released in the US in April. They include the Linksys WRT300N Wireless-N broadband router, WPC300N Wireless-N notebook adapter and WMP300N Wireless-N PCI adapter.

Linksys claims they offer up to four times the range and up to 12 times the throughput of standard 802.11g WLAN products. The 802.11n draft specification allows conforming products to transmit over two available channels at the same time, effectively creating a 40MHz channel that doubles the capacity for applications such as high definition video, audio streaming, online gaming and Voice over IP.

Products are also required to be backward compatible with 802.11g and 802.11b. Mixed mode operation designates that, unlike previous proprietary networking technologies, 802.11n networks must maintain optimum speeds when operating with legacy products. Backward compatibility ensures that existing standards-based wireless products are able to work at their respective highest performance levels for that environment.
However progress on the draft 802.1n standard has stalled  and there have been several reports  suggesting that products conforming to the current draft will not be software upgradeable to the final version.

The products will be available through Harvey Norman, Dick Smith Electronics and Harris Technology: Wireless-N broadband router (WRT300N) $279.95; Wireless-N notebook adapter (WPC300N) $219.95; Wireless-N PCI Adapter (WMP300N) $219.95.

Additional 802.11n products designed for home networking and small business will be launched in the second half of 2006.