Buffalo’s AirStation 125Mbps Wireless Cable/DSL Router-g is the latest effort to boost speed by using proprietary technology, this time with Broadcom chips.
Buffalo’s WHR2-G54 uses a performance and will be available in February 2004 for $199 street.
Broadcom said that the performance gain in AfterBurner is due to closing down the timing between data packets. The chipset uses one 802.11g channel for transmission, unlike Super G, which multiplexes traffic over two channels — an approach that Broadcom claims causes interference with other devices.
It combines 125Mbps 802.11g with Buffalo’s new A.O.S.S. (AirStation One-Touch Secure System) which is said to automatically detect and configure other wireless devices and clients and seamlessly create secure connections. Security features include WPA, WEP, Privacy Separator, and Intrusion Detector.
Competitor, GlobespanVirata, offers 802.11g, 802.11a and 802.11g/a chips that do 140mbps. Packet bursting and file compression techniques are used. A packet concatenation scheme eliminates much of the inefficiency in sending stream data - such as audio or video. In addition, a technology called DirectLink creates a link between clients – or to a media source – without going through the access point. The client will still use the AP’s security features, but data will not pass through the AP. Instead, a ‘side session’, which doubles the data rate of the Nitro chipsets, is used.
Atheros is promoting Super G and Super A/G technology. Atheros Super G , introduced in May 2003, is used in their AR5002 and the newly released, Atheros AR5004 family. By ganging channels 5 & 6 together, Atheros gets 108 mbps. Broadcom claims their chips pick up interference when used near Athero’s ganged channels although other vendor chips are apparently less prone to that interference.
