802.11g enhancement war heats up 802.11g has not been in the market for long, but different vendors already compete with each other to make it go faster. Netgear recently launched its Super-G chip, claiming it could reach speeds of up to 108 Mbps. Now D-Link is bringing out a new chip, based on an alternative standard, which it claims is as fast as Netgear's. D-Link is more modest in its claim, however, saying that its DWL2000AP+ offers a "practical" throughput of around 34 Mbps. D-Link says that this is the same practical throughput one will get from Super-G. Practical speeds are always slower than theoretical speeds, so that the standard 802.11g, boasting 54 Mbps, in reality delivers a throughput closer to 28 Mbps. Netgrear and D-Link are using different technologies, neither of which specification is yet an accepted standard. Netgear is using the Atheros chipset, and it appears to use channel bonding using multiple radio slots for transmission. D-Link uses the TI chipset, which includes the PBCC modulation technology. Both standards only give the speed boost when the access point and Wi-Fi card come from the same vendor. D-Link says the TI scheme is better because it is more about compression of the data before it hits the airwaves and does not preclude transmission of normal 802.11b data at the same time as g+. It also has a heritage, as TI offered a similar speed boost to 802.11b, called b+. The IEEE's 802.11 standards site does not make any explicit reference to either method, so the market may well decide the winner. Prices are not yet available, but g+ should add no more than $15 to $20 to the price of a standard 802.11g base station.
links: http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=displaynews&NewsID=494 http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2003/092980211n.html - jon pgp key: http://www.jonbaer.net/jonbaer.asc fingerprint: F438 A47E C45E 8B27 F68C 1F9B 41DB DB8B 9A0C AF47 -- NYCwireless - http://www.nycwireless.net/ Un/Subscribe: http://lists.nycwireless.net/mailman/listinfo/nycwireless/ Archives: http://lists.nycwireless.net/pipermail/nycwireless/
