Extending its ties with a leading supplier of silicon technology, Intel Corp.
(NASDAQ:INTC) on Friday announced it has teamed with Intersil Corp.
(NASDAQ:ISIL) to accelerate
deployment of current and future Wi-Fi wireless technology to its business
line of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) products.
Intel already incorporates Intersil chip sets into its Anypoint line of
wireless home networking equipment under a separate arrangement. That line
switched over to the IEEE 802.11b technology in April. Prior to that, it had
utilized HomeRF based designs to facilitate data transfers.
Now Intel has incorporated Intersil’s PRISM 2.5 chip set in the recently
announced Intel PRO/Wireless 2011B LAN products, a suite targeted to
business applications. The Intel PRO/Wireless 2011B LAN products include
access points, PC cards, PCI adapters, embedded Mini-PCI cards and USB
modules for use in notebook computers and other mobile devices, as well as
residential gateways that will manage voice, data and video traffic to and
among devices in the home.
Much of the attention has turned to business (a.k.a. enterprise)
deployment of the technology since the collapse of consumer service
provider,
MobileStar, last week.
“The market for 802.11b is growing, applications are increasing and this
relationship will further strengthen upward momentum in the 2.4 GHz band,”
said Greg Williams, president and CEO of Intersil.
Meanwhile, the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) announced
the availability of a new report on Wi-Fi wireless LANs. Based on research
commissioned by Microsoft Corp., (NASDAQ:MSFT) the report examines attitudes about Wi-Fi
wireless LAN technology in both organizations currently using this
technology and organizations that plan to deploy it.
“This is a rapidly growing market, but because it is still in its early
stages there are a lot of questions about the forces driving Wi-Fi’s growth
and the challenges that the technology faces. This report goes a long way
toward answering these questions,” said WECA’s vice chairman, Dennis Eaton.
The report can be downloaded here at the WECA Web site.
WECA is a non-profit organization formed in 1999 to certify
interoperability of the IEEE 802.11b standard.
