News

UK catches up with US on 54 megabit WLAN: this month!

The big day should come before the end of January! Having decided to jump the gun, and launch 54 megabit wireless, all the early birds strangely went quiet for the last few weeks, especially in the UK. The non-standard product known as "54G" networking has started shipping in the US; but all has been quiet in Europe. Now, there are rumblings ...

The Linksys name for 54G is Wireless G, and its products will be officially launched, say sources, before the end of January, in Europe. Exact dates aren't available; we anticipate January 28th. These products are already shipping, but in very restricted volumes, in the US. This is based on the Broadcomm chip set.

The D-Link name is AirPlus Xtreme G - but this is based on a rival Intersil chip - and that is also available in small numbers in the USA. But if anybody at D-Link UK knows about any immediate launch plans, they're being remarkably good at hiding this. Not even distributors will acknowledge getting any early evaluation kit in Britain.

Nobody knows whether the various rivals have discovered incompatibilities with their premature launch products; no inter-working tests have been published. Officially, there is unlikely to be any difficulty; unofficially, there's an admission that nobody knows, really, and they are just holding thumbs and shutting their eyes and hoping.

What may be the case, is that the joint marketing proposals that Broadcom came up with for a 54G label promotion has distracted the marketing people while people dicker about who contributes how much to the campaign, and that rival chip suppliers are rushing to get samples out into the important American distributor markets before they really have enough volume to support the likely response.

So companies like Northamber and Ingram have managed to see early samples, but are not yet permitted to whip up excitement amongst their dealers, who can't get product.

It's possible to go to Amazon and Buy.com and see these products being advertised already; but neither site is showing a shipping date, and both will offer a "pre-order" service.

Melco- Buffalo Technologies - has claimed that it has shipped products, but nobody in the UK could say when evaluation gear might be available in Europe. NetGear is talking about a January date for first shipment, but again, only in the US.

So it looks like Linksys may well be the first out of the block in Europe.