802.11g is coming......

[vniow]

The first of what may become an avalanche of products based on the 802.11g wireless-networking standard will hit the market early next month as gear maker Linksys releases its line of "Instant Wireless-G" devices.

The Irvine, Calif.-based company said Tuesday that early December would see the introduction of the home and office gear, which includes PC cards for laptops, at $80; access points, or radio transmitters, for $140 each; and a router, priced at $150.

The Instant Wireless-G products are likely the first of many wireless networking devices to use the 802.11g standard, which allows for 54mbps Web access as opposed to the 11mbps access available on popular 802.11b, or Wi-Fi, networks. The Instant Wireless-G gear is compatible with any of the 6 million to 8 million Wi-Fi networks now in operation. In-Stat/MDR researchers have said that by 2005, more than 55 million Wi-Fi-based wireless networks will be in homes and offices.

Reasonable price, speed of 'a', compatibility of 'b', sounds good to me.

 

[bousozoku]

It sounds great except that it's 54Mbps (megabits per second), not mbps (millibits per second).

Maybe it doesn't matter--millions of bits of thousanths of bits--which would you prefer?

 

[pgwalsh]

This will be great for small office networks. I wonder if they solved the range issue. I heard that 802.11a and g have a range issue. Less range, but more data.