As the IEEE standards process drags the industry’s heels on the slow road to 802.11n, the latest RangeMax Wi-Fi access point offers speeds up to 240Mbps.

Although investing in non-standards compliant hardware is a decision not to be taken lightly, the low-cost of Wi-Fi hardware and the slow rate of standards negotiations is making non-standard Wi-Fi look all the more attractive.

A case in point is the latest RangeMax 240 router and PC card from Netgear which sets a new standard in high speed wireless networking.

Offering speeds up to 240 Mbps ­opens up a new vista for bandwidth-intensive applications such as hi-def video and audio or applications such as VoIP in the home.

“Increasing convergence in the home means that people are now looking to access a wide variety of applications simultaneously, placing huge demands on their network,” said Ian McLean, Vice President, Netgear Asia-Pacific.

“Our original RangeMax family of products has proven popular in Australia and around the world, becoming the top selling MIMO range globally – a trend that we believe will continue with the new RangeMax 240 line.”
The system doubles Netgear’s previous top speed by using Airgo Networks spatial multiplexing technology to send multiple data streams across a single wireless channel.

The new product family includes the WPNT834 Wireless Router and the 240 WPNT511 Wireless Notebook Adapter which the company says “ensures that for the first time wireless has attained an effective throughput of up to 100Mbps”.

The devices are capable of supporting encryption at 128bit (AES, TKIP and WEP) thanks to hardware acceleration.

Prices are: RangeMax 240 WPNT834 Wireless Router (RRP: $339) and WPNT511 Wireless Notebook Adapter (RRP: $219).