Pre N -- Engadget

pre-n posts

CSIRO throws 802.11n ratification a curve

by Darren Murph posted Oct 3rd 2007 at 11:12AM

CSIRO and aggravation tend to go hand in hand, so it's no real shock to learn that the organization is playing hard ball in a recent push to get 802.11n closer to ratification. Reportedly, CSIRO "refused to provide a letter of assurance to the IEEE working group developing the much-delayed 802.11n WiFi standard," and it cited legal discord between it and Microsoft, Intel, Dell, HP, Netgear, Toshiba, Fujitsu, Nintendo and 3Com as the primary holdup. The group's senior vice-president of licensing, Denis Redfern, was quoted as saying that "where litigation is involved, CSIRO will continue to reserve its rights in relation to licensing," so it looks like an official 802.11n standard is still that far off from being founded.

Netgear gets 802.11n draft 2.0 certified with RangeMax NEXT routers

by Darren Murph posted Jun 30th 2007 at 6:05AM

Surely bitter after being one-upped by D-Link by a matter of hours (strictly in terms of time to press, of course), Netgear is still tooting its own horn over being the second to receive the Wi-Fi Alliance's 802.11n draft 2.0 certification. The firm's first two devices to include the newfangled seal are the RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Router Gigabit Edition (WNR854T) and the RangeMax NEXT Wireless-N Router (WNR834B; seen after the break), both of which are fully backwards compatible with the slower flavors of 802.11. Thankfully, citizens who currently own a RangeMax NEXT 802.11n Draft 1.0 product can upgrade their device free of charge via a firmware download, and Netgear even proclaims that the rest of its Wireless-N products are "being tested" and should be up to snuff soon.

Continue reading Netgear gets 802.11n draft 2.0 certified with RangeMax NEXT routers

Buffalo unveils draft-N WZR-AMPG300NH router, PC Card

by Darren Murph posted Jun 29th 2007 at 2:55PM

Going over two months without releasing yet another router is quite a feat for Buffalo, but the firm is yet again giving the wireless crowd something to cheer about with its WZR-AMPG300NH. Part of the ever-growing AirStation NFINITI lineup, this draft-N device purportedly plays nice with 802.11a/b/g as well, boasts throughput of around 153Mbps, and includes MIMO technology to make full use of the trio of antennas. You'll also find the typical WPA2 certification, and if you need a WiFi adapter in order to make use of it, the WLI-CB-AMG300N PCMCIA network card fits the bill perfectly. Look for both devices to land in Japan next month (well, we hope) for ¥40,200 ($328), or pick up the router by its lonesome for ¥31,700 ($258).

[Via AkihabaraNews]

NEC's goes 802.11n Draft 2.0 with Aterm WR8400N router / PCMCIA card

by Darren Murph posted May 23rd 2007 at 3:18PM

Last fall, NEC took its WARPSTAR lineup into the realm of draft-N with the Aterm WR8200N, and thanks to all this Draft 2.0 hubbub that's going around, apparently it figured now would be a good time to hop on the next bandwagon. The Aterm WR8400N four-port router and Aterm WL300NC PCMCIA card both tout theoretical transfer rates of around 300Mbps, are backwards compatible with 802.11a/b/g devices, support "Multi SSID" / WEP / WAP protocols, and can automatically detect and connect to signals in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. No word just yet on price nor availability, but we're sure it'll get lost in the crowd of similar alternatives before too long anyway.

[Via Impress]

Atheros offers up 802.11n Draft 2.0-spec XSPAN solutions

by Darren Murph posted May 23rd 2007 at 7:42AM

You'll probably recall Atheros' name from the rundown of Draft 2.0 802.11n gear mentioned just a week ago, but now the firm is getting official with its bundle of refreshed pre-N gear. The new AR9001 family of chipset solutions builds upon the existing XSPAN offerings, and is reportedly compliant with the latest IEEE draft of 802.11n. Primarily aiming for SMB and Enterprise markets, the outfit is doling out a number of AR9001AP access points / router SoCs that "integrate its 802.11n MAC / baseband and 400MHz Wireless Network Processor (WNPU) into a single chip." On the consumer front, the AR9001U sect presents the "world's first dual-band capable 802.11n USB chipset," and also includes the company's first 1x2 MIMO configuration. Unsurprisingly, pricing details on all these goodies are still up in the air, but Atheros claims that second-generation AR9001 items are currently sampling to customers and should hit " full volume production" in Q3 of this year.

[Via PCWorld]

D-Link's Xtreme N Duo MediaBridge enables HD streaming

by Darren Murph posted May 16th 2007 at 8:34AM

It's not too tough these days to find a router with HD streaming in its arsenal, but D-Link is aiming for a slightly different set with its dual-band Xtreme N Duo MediaBridge. Essentially, this liaison connects to your existing router in order to add 5GHz 802.11n abilities to your setup, which purportedly "helps avoid interference by allowing the user to use the 5GHz frequency band to provide a stable high-performance wireless link for streaming HD video." Clearly designed with the DIR-655 in mind, this device also allows up to five Ethernet-enabled media devices to become attached on a separate unit for even more high-definition WiFi streaming. Notably, the DAP-1555 itself doesn't seem to double as an Ethernet router, and unfortunately, you'll have to wait until the thing ships in Q3 to find out how much it'll dent your wallet.

[Via SmallNetBuilder

802.11n creeps closer to finality as Draft 2.0 reaches milestone

by Evan Blass posted Mar 14th 2007 at 7:45PM

It's been a long, hard road for all of us -- consumers, manufacturers, developers, and a little club called the 802.11n Working Group -- but the next-gen, MIMO-powered WiFi standard has finally reached an important milestone in its tortured journey from a wee pre-N to a full-fledged spec (hopefully!), with 83.4% of eligible voters approving the latest Draft 2.0 revision. As we all remember from the overwhelming initial rejection of Draft 1.0, a 75% supermajority is required for moving on to the next stage, so the fact that there was this much support coupled with relatively few comments (3,000-some versus the 12,000+ for that famous Draft 1.0 flameout) means that we may actually be on track for a planned April 2009 publication of the final IEEE spec. The best part is that since Draft 2.0 is guaranteed to be fully compatible with the finalized 802.11n, your current gear with the D 2.0 badge of honor will definitely play nice with future components. So we're in the home stretch now, folks -- all that's left is some nitpicking over technicalities and language -- and it looks like the naysayers will have been proven wrong after all; although when WiMax comes to town and makes WLANs irrelevant, there's a good chance that this whole ordeal will be quickly forgotten anyway.

[Via Ars Technica]

Intel's built-in 802.11n Mini PCI card gets official

by Darren Murph posted Jan 23rd 2007 at 5:12PM

We realize that Intel has probably waited about as long as it possibly can on this not-yet-ratified 802.11n deal, but on the very day we see some rare signs of life in the 802.11 task force, Intel is making its own draft-spec 802.11n Mini PCI card official. While we've known that Intel would be backing the protocol for some time now, the company has just announced that the 4965agn card (backwards compatible with a/b/g networks) will be replacing the existing 3945abg card and should be shipping on most Vista-equipped laptops. Intel claims that its new card will offer up "five times the performance, twice the range, and greater battery life" than its predecessor. Additionally, the firm launched the "Connect with Centrino" campaign, which will force vendors such as Asus, Belkin, Buffalo, D-Link, and Netgear to pass Intel's own line of testing in order to receive its coveted seal of approval, which is just begging to cause inoperability problems whenever 802.11n goes final. Users interested in getting the latest WiFi chip in their Centrino package can look for that (probably large) palm rest sticker signifying that it's certified starting this week, and if you're ~~completely bored~~ interested, you can click on through to see a demonstration video on how Intel tests its own Connect with Centrino program.

Continue reading Intel's built-in 802.11n Mini PCI card gets official

802.11n going up for approval once again

by Darren Murph posted Jan 23rd 2007 at 10:33AM

Sure, they say the third time's a charm, but at this point, all "charm" in the grueling 802.11n ratification process has evaporated. Moving ever-so-slightly ahead of schedule, the IEEE's 802.11 working group has "unanimously approved Draft 1.10 of the 802.11n WiFi spec," and has now passed it along to the entire membership of the IEEE for final approval. Of course, we've certainly been down the unfortunate road before, but hopefully the folks in charge will give it the thumbs-up we all need to sanely move on with our wireless lives. Notably, there's "no set timeline" for when it expects an approval / denial decision, but if the membership does give this draft the green light, "it will be the final 802.11n specification." Now, let's all cross our collective fingers for some positive (and hasty) decision making.

Airport Extreme launched: draft 802.11n and USB hosting now supported

by Thomas Ricker posted Jan 9th 2007 at 2:46PM

It may not bring the thunder like an Apple iPhone but the Airport Extreme does bring draft-N of the 802.11 WiFi standard. That means up to 5x the speed and 2x the performance of traditional WiFi networks which should deliver a bit of a rumble to the living room or office. It also support legacy 802.11a/b/g giving it full 2.4GHz and 5GHz coverage. It also features AirPort Disk, a USB host port around back allowing you to share an external USB hard drive over your wireless or wired network. Or just attach a USB printer and share that, your choice. Best of all, it should work with the unannounced, but apparently real, 802.11n draft hardware in your recently purchased Mac -- look for a software update to roll soon. By February anyway, when the Airport Extreme ships for $180.

D-Link DSM-750 MediaLounge Wireless Media Player

by Peter Rojas posted Jan 8th 2007 at 9:47PM

D-Link quietly kicked out the DSM-750 MediaLounge Wireless Media Player, a new digital media adapter with draft 802.11n WiFi. By now you probably know how these things work, this one let's you stream internet radio and supports playback of h.264 and VC-1 video files (and we presume several other major video and audio formats as well, though the release doesn't get too specific). Also has Ethernet, HDMI, component video, digital audio, and composite A/V connectors, and a USB 2.0 port for connecting up an USB mass storage drive.

SMC ships trio of draft-spec 802.11n networking gear

by Darren Murph posted Jan 4th 2007 at 12:05AM

It looks the barrage of draft-spec 802.11n gear being released isn't slowing down anytime soon, and helping the yet-to-be-ratified protocol gain more ground is SMC. Making good on its promise to ship draft-N gear, the networking company has reportedly launched the Barricade N, which utilizes "multi-antenna MIMO support" to connect at rates of "up to 300Mbps," sports a four-port Ethernet switch, and can automatically prioritize duties such as music / video streaming to keep things skip-free. Complementing the new router are pre-N versions of the company's EZ Connect CardBus and PCI wireless adapters, which will give your lappie or desktop the ability to take advantage of the ultra-speedy 802.11n standard. All three devices are purportedly available right now, with the Barricade N selling for $120, the PCMCIA adapter demanding $80, and the PCI card costing $90.

D-Link DWA-643 Xtreme N Notebook ExpressCard gets by FCC

by Darren Murph posted Dec 29th 2006 at 5:26PM

Looks like D-Link has hopped on the draft-N bandwagon and slammed the pedal down, as it's been releasing a flurry of 802.11n-compatibile gear of late. Yet another piece of kit that should hit US shelves soon is the firm's DWA-643 Xtreme N Notebook ExpressCard, which has just received that coveted stamp of approval from the FCC. The card sports backwards compatibility with 802.11b/g networks, WPA support, and works solely on Windows machines -- of course, this shouldn't bother you Apple laptop owners that much anyway. Per usual, the FCC isn't one to spill the beans on pricing or availability details, but we shouldn't have to hold out too much longer now that it's crossed the biggest hurdle.

[Via Laptoping]

Intel gets behind pre-802.11n, adding to Centrino

by Paul Miller posted Nov 30th 2006 at 7:40PM

Well, it doesn't look like there's any turning back now. After waiting for what feels like the better part of a century for an official stamp of approval on 802.11n, draft-n and pre-n products just got a whole lot of legitimacy from Intel, who has now announced it will be stuffing the pre-standard WiFi spec into its Centrino chipsets as early as next year. Along with the usual user benefits of added speed and supposed range improvements over 802.11g -- Intel is claiming 50 percent greater, but we'll believe that when we see it -- the inclusion of pre-n by Intel will most likely create a de-facto standard for 802.11n which could prove difficult for the IEEE Standards Committee to screw with when they finally get around to finalizing the 802.11n spec in 2008. Sounds like a win for consumers for now, but we could all be hurting come mid-2008 when we find out those fancy laptops we sprung for in 2007 are suddenly obsolete.

[Via Ars Technica]

Linksys WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link

by Peter Rojas posted Oct 12th 2006 at 12:15AM

Linksys busted out a new pre-N wireless router today, the WRT350N Wireless-N Gigabit Router with Storage Link. They're claiming wireless throughput speeds of up to 12 times 802.11g with this thing (your mileage can, and almost certainly will, vary), but if you're pushing high-def video around the house you'll take all the bandwidth you can get, right? To sweeten the deal, the WRT350N also includes a wired Gigabit switch (which is still somewhat rare in a consumer-grade router) and a USB port that'll let you turn any external USB mass storage drive into a plug-and-play Network Attached Storage device. Looks like they're shipping this thing now (or at least very soon) with a street price of $120.

Update: Whoops, we knew that price sounded too good to be true. The actual MSRP is $249.

Update 2: Geez, you wouldn't think that pricing on a router would be this hard to nail down. Now the word from Linksys is that the WRT350N will set you back only $229. Stay tuned for more price corrections as we receive them.