P.
Hayes - May 5, 2000
Event
Summary
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - On April 18, 2000, 3Com Corporation (Nasdaq:COMS
- news) announced that its 3Com AirConnect 11Mbps Wireless LAN is among
the first products awarded the Wi-Fi™ certification for interoperability.
Granted by the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA), the Wi-Fi
compatibility logo serves as the "seal of interoperability"
for products based on the IEEE 802.11b standard.
Market
Impact
The WECA was formed in 1999 in order to certify IEEE 802.11b, or Wi-Fi
as the international standard. 3Com's AirConnect is built on the IEEE
802.11b standard, the only standard available to provide wireless access
at Ethernet speeds up to 11Mbps; making a wireless LAN a viable option
for any sized corporation.
The
3Com AirConnect system requires an access point, priced at $1195 (MSRP-USD)
with each wireless AirConnect pc-card costing an additional $219 (MSRP-USD).
3Com will be releasing a PCI AirConnect card within the next quarter (probability
90%). 3Com has taken the concept of a high speed wireless LAN from fiction
to reality and is set to take the wireless LAN market by storm.
The
costs associated with implementing a standard switched 10/100 MB LAN with
Category 5 cabling are prohibitive. They are expensive to install, difficult
to modify once in place, and worst of all, if you move office locations
you lose your investment in your network backbone. Not so with AirConnect.
While
the cards may be relatively expensive compared to the cost of a standard
NIC (Network Interface Card), the cost of an access point is roughly the
same cost as a 16-Port 10/100 switch. This makes the system more cost
effective than implementing a physically wired network, and the wireless
network can be taken with you for office moves or office-redesign.
User
Recommendations
The 3Com AirConnect Wireless LAN simplifies the whole concept of networking.
By mounting AirConnect Access Points throughout an office, users will
have high-speed access to all available network resources, whether the
user is in a conference room, at their desk or in the cafeteria. While
we believe that 3Com's AirConnect Wireless LAN is a great step forward
in wireless networking, we also believe users should hold out for more
economical pricing.
In
some cases users cannot wait and their wireless needs must be met today;
for these cases we recommend smaller rollouts to groups of users who require
wireless access as opposed to the users who simply want wireless access.
In either case, make sure you have fully production tested the product
within your environment prior to making any final purchase decision.