1. Wireless LANs - No joy for g!

The spring Networld+Interop show was smaller and quieter than last year's. The good news is that companies are starting to see signs of life and the increased sales that go with it, but we're a long way from the go-go days of a few years ago. Enough of the editorializing! Let's get to what I saw at the show.

The wireless LAN story for the show was not 802.11g products. Most everyone I spoke with said that even though devices are available from chipmakers such as Intersil, Atheros, and others, they won't be shipping 11g products until the spec is finalized. Although I got conflicting data about the timing of that approval from some of my conversations, the consensus seems to be that we won't be seeing 11g devices until early 2003, instead of the fall 2002 that folks were talking about in January.

In the meantime, you'll just have to make do with the slew of dual-band 802.11a/b Access Points that it seemed everyone was showing. But you won't be able to get your hands on these products anytime soon, since most companies were quoting Q3 ship dates. Here's the rundown on who has what. Note that some of the products were shown, but haven't been announced:

Agere/ORiNOCO announced an 11a kit for the dual-radio AP-2000 Access point. [related story] Cisco was showing their Aironet 1200 Series Access Point. [related story] Intermec was demonstrating their WA 21 dual-band AP. [related story] SMC showed their EliteConnect 802.11a/b Dual-Band Wireless Access point (SMC2785W) [related story]

Dual-band AP's weren't the only 802.11a story, however. Go to the next section and see what else is new in 11a land.