Linksys

ALSO NOTED: D-Link leads in draft 802.11n WiFi product shipments; WiMAX expected to grow to $7.7B by 2011; and much more...

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:59:51 -0400

> According to analyst firm In-Stat, D-Link leads in draft 802.11n WiFi product shipments globally, surpassing Linksys and Belkin. Article

> Orange France is rolling out a new high speed HSDPA service for corporate customers. Article

> Infonetics says the WiMAX market is expected to grow to $7.7 billion by 2011. Article

> Ofcom announces spectrum auction plans. Article

Draft 2.0 of 802.11n sent out for approval

Mon, 22 Jan 2007 19:01:37 -0500

The 802.11 working group (with just five abstentions) has agreed on a Draft 2.0 of the 802.11n WiFi specifications and sent the draft document to the entire membership of the IEEE for approval. If a majority of the members approve, Draft 2.0 will form the basis for the final 802.11n spec (technology analyst Glenn Fleishman notes: "The odds are about zero at this point for any changes that will involve anything but firmware upgrades as there will be an entire entrenched industry for Draft 2.0-based products"). The standard's theoretical speed is about 600 Mbps, but in reality we should expect something more on the order of 200 Mbps, which is twice the speed of wired-based Ethernet and about four times the speed of 802.11g.

The speed is telling. In this year's CES, Ruckus Wireless demoed its draft 802.11n equipment which simultaneously streamed 1080p video to a couple of TV sets while also streaming standard-definition video to other devices. Just imagine transmitting HD content from one device to another without requiring coaxial cable or Cat 5e wire.

Several companies have rushed "draft N" or pre-802.11n gear to market, among them Dell, Linksys, Belkin and D-Link. Indeed, the wave of draft-N gear available has moved the otherwise staid Wi-Fi Alliance to take the unprecedented move of having a two-stage certifying process: By March, the Alliance will certify products as being compliant with Draft 2.0. When the spec is finalized later this year or in early 2008, the Alliance will certify products as fully 802.11n compliant.

The interest in the new standard has been intense, as evidenced by the fact that after Draft 1.0 was released in early 2006, the IEEE Task Group N was buried by an avalanche of more than 12,000 comments from the public. Group members said that was about six times more than what they expected.

The final ratification is expected around October 2008, but the spec will be finalized around January 2008.

For more on the state of Draft 2.0 802.11n:
- see Ephraim Scwartz's InfoWorld column
- see Eric Bangeman's Ars Technica report

ALSO: Owners of Apple computers with 802.11n-capable hardware would be required to pay a nominal fee of $1.99 for enabler software to let them use the faster connectivity. This comes after the company introduced the new AirPort Extreme wireless networking base station. This device supports the draft of the IEEE's forthcoming 802.11n fast WiFi standard. Report

Accton to manufacture gear for FON

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:01:35 -0400

Maybe FON is not today's version of the 1960s, but still, there is something about its concept of sharing that brings the good old days of the 1960s communes to mind. Not that purely capitalist tools mind, as evidenced by reports that Taiwanese networking vendor Accton Technology is close to a deal with FON SA to manufacturer wireless equipment for the Spanish company. In February Madrid-based FON made the headlines by announcing the completion of a $21.7 million Series A funding round which included Google and Skype as investors. At the same time Mike Volpi, VP of business development at Cisco, became a board member of FON.

The company's business model is based on its software being downloaded to a WiFi router (provided by Linksys), enabling free or paid-for access to the Internet to third parties who are, like the owner, a member of the FON community ("foneros"). There are "Linus" members (who allow free access) and "Bills" (who charge), and there are also "Alien" foneros, who only pay to access the network without owning infrastructure, with 50 percent of the revenue from them shared with the Bills.

Some speculate that Accton will supply gear to FON for use in the Asian market, while Linksys will continue to supply the routers in Europe and the Americas.

For more on the Accton-FON possible deal
-see Computer Business Review report

SPOTLIGHT: More draft-n products

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:01:33 -0400

Linksys is showing its draft 802.11n wireless products, based on the IEEE draft 802.11n standard, thus joining Netgear and Buffalo Technology as vendors with draft-n products. Linksys said its Wireless-N Broadband Router (WRT300N, about $150) and Notebook Adapter (WPC300N, about $120) are available at BestBuy.com, with other locations to be available shortly. The company says the new equipment offers up to four times the range and up to 12 times the throughput of its wireless-g products. As was the case with its earlier SRS product, the new Wireless-N offerings use MIMO technology to transmit two streams of data simultaneously over multiple channels. To support the draft specification, Linksys says its products will provide mixed-mode operation and backward compatibility with 802.11g and 802.11b products. Report

Linux driver available for Broadcom WLAN chipset

Tue, 06 Dec 2005 19:01:35 -0500

Who says reverse engineering takes place only in China? More than two years ago a group was formed to reverse engineer the Broadcom WLAN chipsets to provide Linux drivers. This chipset is used by many OEMs, among them Apple's AirPort Extreme in PowerBooks and iBooks, Linksys' WAP and WRT series of consumer grade wireless routers, different laptops from Acer, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, and others, and many more external and internal devices, including CardBus cards.

That reverse engineering work has now reached its first milestone with a free (GPL2 or later) Linux driver for a variety of these chipsets. Currently, only infrastructure and monitor modes are supported, but the chipset has advanced functionality for AP and ad-hoc modes which will be supported in the future, along with encryption and power-save features. Work is also being done to support plain 802.11b and also 802.11a chipsets, but progress has stalled because no product was made available to the developers.

For more on the free Linux drivers:
- see this LinuxElectrons report
- see this document for URLs of chip and driver specs (pdf)
- and free (GPL2 or later) Linux driver for a variety of chipsets
- also see the Web site of the reverse engineering group

Linksys makes WiFi security set up easy

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 20:01:37 -0400

Good news for those concerned about WiFi security (and who isn't?): Linksys has (finally) released its first network product which features the company's SecureEasySetup Technology. The new system allows users to make their networks more secure by literally pushing a button. The button applies WPA settings to the router and client computer. It encrypts data flowing between AP and client, and configures the network SSID. This one-push button replaces the current system of manually keying in the security key to configure WPA encryption and SSID. "Installation of a wireless network with security features has traditionally been a complicated and time-consuming task," said Linksys' Malachy Moynihan. "We hope that technology such as SecureEasySetup is adopted as a standard used by all WiFi equipment manufacturers so that any networked device can be added simply to a home network."

Linksys' decision is wise, but the story does not end there: The consortium of network and IT companies which have developed SecureEasySetup has submitted it to the IEEE for consideration for inclusion in the WiFi standard. Moreover, SecureEasySetup is an open standard, so WiFi gear manufacturers may include it in their devices without royalty payments. HP, Broadcom, Buffalo, and others have already said they would back the technology.

For more on Linksys' new security solution
-see Tom Sanders' Vnunet report

ALSO: Netgear is including a software wizards in some of its routers, and all of its major wireless client hardware, to make security set up easier. Story