Gearing Up For Wireless Networking - Multimedia Wireless Home Network from Netgear Inc - Product Announcement

Computer Technology Review, July, 2001

NETGEAR Inc., a provider of small business and home networking products, announced the availability of its first product family in a new generation of multimedia entertainment networking products. The Multimedia Wireless Home Network provides consistent data throughput allowing simultaneous video and audio streaming on multiple PCs and other Internet enabled devices without interruption from any other network activity or appliance typically found in the small business. Users can share a high-speed Cable/DSL Internet connection virtually anywhere in or around their business and enjoy a new quality of multimedia without installing expensive cabling.

The Multimedia Wireless Home Network is comprised of the WA301 Multimedia wireless PCI Network Card and WE102 Multimedia Wireless to Ethernet Bridge. The WA301 Multimedia Wireless PCI Adapter allows customers with current or legacy desktop PCs running Windows 95/98/2000/Me to connect to their multimedia wireless network with greater throughput than with 802.llb standards. The WE102 Multimedia Wireless to Ethernet Bridge allows peer to peer networking thus making the access point obsolete.

True QoS, FEC, Channel Agility, and Master Node Redundancy make NETGEAR's networking products reliable solutions in the wireless networking market worldwide. Time Domain Multiple Access (TDMA) supports exceptional data throughput and ensures that streams consistently allocate the required bandwidth. Forward Error Correction (FEC) reduces packet re-transmission by correcting errors on-the-fly without any degradation in data throughput. Master Node Redundancy technology, designed for peer-to-peer networking, prevents a single point of failure, unlike 802.11 systems running in AP mode.

The WA301 Multimedia wireless PCI Network Card and WE102 Multimedia Wireless to Ethernet Bridge are now available individually or together in the WB302 Multimedia Wireless Starter Kit. They are based on ShareWave's Whitecap technology, come with a five-year warranty, and can be up and running in less than 30 minutes.