Cisco Beefs Up Wireless Effort With New 802.11g, Multimode Products

"[Customers] have been hounding us because they want wireless, they want Cisco, but they want [802.11]g," said Tom Hagin, vice president of sales at NetXperts, a Cisco partner based in San Ramon, Calif. "This will open the floodgates for those customers waiting for [Cisco 802.11g] products."

Wi-Fi will soon push its way into wired routers and switches, an evolution Cisco plans to spearhead by drawing on its legacy as the leading provider of wired infrastructure, said Larry Birenbaum, senior vice president and general manager of the Ethernet Access Group at Cisco, San Jose, Calif. "Much of our forward-looking development is focused on bringing the two [environments] together," he said.

The Cisco Aironet 1100 and 1200 Series access points provide backward-compatibility with the vendor's 802.11b clients and the Cisco Wireless IP Phone 7920. Cisco also offers 802.11g radio-upgradable modules for its 802.11b access points.

The hardware supports Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), security features that will be enabled for all Cisco Aironet 802.11g devices in 2004 via a free software upgrade after the ratification of the IEEE 802.11i standard, expected by the end of this year.

Cisco's new 802.11a/b/g-enabled client adapters, available in CardBus and PCI form factors, support Windows XP and 2000.

Set to ship by the end of November, the Aironet 1100 and 1200 Series access points are priced at $599 and $899, respectively, and the 802.11g upgrade kit is priced at $149. The Cisco Aironet 802.11a/b/g CardBus, slated for release next quarter, costs $169, and the PCI Card is $249.

JENNIFER HAGENDORF FOLLETT contributed to this story.