BW Online | April 17, 2003 | Where Wi-Fi Goes from Here

According to a recent forecast from market consultancy Cahners In-Stat, 90% of laptops sold in 2005 will have built-in wireless-access capabilities, up from 5.7% in 2002.

Intel says we're running a pilot out of this building: We are getting Wi-Fi to a home 10 miles away, running at 2 to 3 megabits per second, and a home 20 miles away at 1 megabit per second [using directional antennas mounted on a roof at Intel's Jones Farm Campus in Hillsboro, Ore.]. As the distance from the access point is increased, the speed drops off.

We have engineers working on a variant of Wi-Fi, called WiMAX, which will have a 31-mile linear service range -- a huge improvement over Wi-Fi's 300-foot radius. It will also offer much higher speeds, of up to 70 megabits per second, vs. 11 for Wi-Fi. I think there will be lots of variants of Wi-Fi.