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Although the much-heralded IEEE 802.11n WLAN standard is probably a good year away from formal ratification, end-products based on Draft 1.0 of the standard were released from a handful of vendors in 2Q06. Approximately 300 thousand total Draft n routers, clients and access points shipped out from home and SMB networking specialists Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, Buffalo and Belkin.



On the 802.11n chipset side, Draft n chipsets from Atheros, Broadcom and Marvell are powering Draft n end-products. Additionally, Intel is set to release its Kedron 802.11n wireless module within its Santa Rosa mobile platform in early 2007, even though the standard will not be ratified by then. Consequently, there is much pressure on Task Group N within the IEEE 802.11 Working Group to come up with a more solid standard to put PC OEMs more at ease with the thought of embedding Draft n solutions into mobile PCs.



Recent research by In-Stat found the following:



The ratio of Draft n wireless routers to clients is practically one to one, as users realize they must purchase both products to capitalize on the full coverage and throughput potential.



Pre-n products such as Netgear’s MIMO G products experienced healthy growth over the quarter; these products have benefited from the positive press they have received around performance, and typically have ASPs that are 30-40% lower than those of Draft n products.



On the IC side, Taiwanese WLAN IC provider Airoha announced Draft n RF transceiver solutions in July. WLAN MIMO pioneer Airgo is expected to release a Draft n chipset once the standard is more solid, along with Israel-based Metalink. Taiwanese WLAN chipset vendor Ralink is expected to release a Draft n chipset by the end of 2006.



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