A new wireless Ethernet card being developed by Atheros Communications is capable of sending and receiving data at up to 72 Mbps – seven times faster than the 11 Mbps available with current 802.11a technology like Apple’s Airport. The Atheros AR5000 PC card utilizes the 5 GHz band as opposed to the overcrowded 2.5 GHz band.
By reengineering and optimizing conventional radio architecture, Atheros has developed a breakthrough in next-generation wireless local area network (LAN) semiconductor technology. The company has made possible the world’s first complete “Radio-on-a-Chip”(RoC) at 5-GHz using standard-process CMOS.
Additionally, as a 5-GHz solution, the Atheros AR5000 chipset is free of interference from microwave ovens, 2.4-GHz cordless phones, and other technologies such as Bluetooth and HomeRF which compete for the 2.4-GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) frequency band.
The company plans to produce the card this summer. The only catch, it will only operate at a throttled-down 54 Mbps because of limitations in the current IEEE standards.
For more information on WLAN technology, check out my Macworld Expo conference “Your Wireless Future,” Wednesday, 18 July 2001 at 3:30 p.m.
