First Look: NETGEAR 802.11a+b Access Point

By Wayne Kawamoto

NETGEAR, a provider of networking products, announced the addition of the NETGEAR Dual-Band Wireless Access Point (WAB102) to its dual-band wireless networking product line. The Dual Band Wireless Access Point joins the company’s WAB501 Dual-Band Wireless PC Card giving organizations the flexibility to implement new or upgrade existing wireless network infrastructures and provide standard-based support of both 802.11a and 802.11b devices and networks.

The Dual-Band Access Point, which is designed to be backward and forward compatible with any IEEE wireless networking standard in the 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz bands, should enable organizations to add 802.11a clients while maintaining support for 802.11b clients. The access point auto-configures with NETGEAR client adapters and features dynamic rate shifting to ensure a fast connection based upon existing environmental conditions

The standards-based NETGEAR Dual Band Wireless Access Point (WAB102) simultaneously supports both 802.11b and 802.11a wireless networking standards providing data rates of 11Mbps and 54Mbps respectively, (108Mbps in 802.11a “Turbo” mode) and is forward compatible with future wireless standards including 802.11g. In addition to MAC Address Filtering, the access point features up to 152 bit-WEP encryption, offering the highest-level, industry standard security. For ease-of-management, the WAB102 utilizes a simple Web-based configuration tool.

Backed by a three-year warranty and 24/7 technical support, the NETGEAR WAB102 Dual Band Wireless Access Point is available now at an estimated street price of $299 via systems integrators, retailers, catalogues, and e-commerce sites.