3. Airgo isn't alone anymore

It looks like Belkin's Pre-N MIMO products have done well enough that their competitors have decided to plow ahead and litter the market with incompatible MIMO systems.

At least Linksys' SRX router and card should be interoperable with Belkin's Pre-N, since they are both based on Airgo's True MIMO technology. But NETGEAR decided to see Airgo's three-antenna MIMO and raise it four antennas for a total of seven even if it meant going with an unknown startup's (Video54) technology. (I guess the number of antennas will be the next product-box "starburst" that consumers will be trained to look for...)

NETGEAR's RangeMax in action

But I have to wonder why NETGEAR went with Video54 and a blinky-light product "demo", when they could have had real product based on Atheros' MIMO chipset unveiled this morning. Guess I'll have to ask them!

Video54 isn't the only startup to go jump into the MIMO pool, either. Samsung is backing fabless startup Athena Semiconductor's three radio design dubbed TRINI. I'll be checking out Samsung's demonstration that "will show consistent link throughputs in excess of 50 Mbps" by using two simultaneous HDTV streams and a single Standard Definition Television stream. The release also said the TRINI chipset will be available to "select OEM and ODM partners" in 1Q of 2005 and in production in 2Q.