Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Intel's new wireless card with pre-802.11n

Pc World had an article today about Intel unveiling its new wireless card that supports IEEE 802.11n which is still in draft mode. As per the IEEE 802.11 Official Timelines, 802.11n is anticipated to be approved as a standard only next year. Obviously, Intel is jumping the gun here in order to get a good head-start.

802.11n has a theoretical maximum bitrate of 540 Mbits/s as compared to the 54 Mbits/s of 802.11g. It uses MIMO - multiple antennae at both the sending and receiving ends to increase the data rate. It is an exciting technology and indeed, there are devices in the market already that have the draft 802.11n implementation. You can read more about the standard at IEEE's own website.