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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JUNE 23, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 25
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Breaking News -
Networking:
Standards Group Gives Go-Ahead To
Faster Wi-Fi
An international technical group gave its stamp of approval to wireless
technology that can transmit data two to five times faster than existing
short-range network gear known as "Wi-Fi."
Approval from The Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers, a
technology
industry standards-setting body, could encourage business to use gear based on
the new standard called 802.11g, analysts said.
"This approval will accelerate the process," said W.R. Hambrecht analyst
Satya
Chillara, who expects that 2003 Wi-Fi sales will top the previous three years
altogether.
But consumers have already bought more than 6 million products based on "g"
this year and businesses will begin buying it next year, "when technology
budgets are freed up," according to Chillara.
The new standard works with gear based on the existing Wi-Fi standard,
called
802.11b, and runs at theoretical speeds of up to 54 megabits, or millions of
bits per second, compared with "b"'s 11 megabits per second theoretical
speed.
But in some cases "g" gear, which has a shorter range than "b," reaches
just
double the older technology's speed, Gartner Inc. analyst Kenneth Dulaney
said.
Dulaney also pointed out that it makes less sense for offices, which have
already installed the older technology, to upgrade to "g" unless they overhaul
the entire network, since mixed connections would only support the slower
speeds.
Separately, Texas Instruments Inc., a supplier of network computer chips
used
to build wireless computing gear, said that with the IEEE approval, it had
begun on Thursday to ship chips based on the "g" standard to its
customers.
But companies such as Intersil Corp. (Nasdaq:ISIL - news), Broadcom Corp.
and
privately owned Atheros, which specialize in Wi-Fi, have already sold chips
for products based on the new standard. This puts them well ahead of Texas
Instruments and chip leader Intel Corp., which only began selling products
based on the older standards earlier this year, Chillara said.
"They're definitely behind," said Chillara referring to Intel and Texas
Instruments.
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