Wireless News

Japan to leave Wi-Fi gear untaxed for now

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has decided to leave unlicensed radio devices free of the taxman's reach for now.

As previously reported, the MIC was considering imposing a “Radio Utilization Fee” that would apply to devices that operate in license-free spectrum, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, UWB and similar technologies.

Wireless News

Japan mulling tax on Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, other devices

On July 5, a workshop was held by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) to consider imposing a “Radio Utilization Fee”.

The fee would apply to radio devices that operate in license-free spectrum, which includes Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and UWB technologies.

Wireless News

Belkin adds new N1 draft 11n router

Belkin today announced its N1 Vision wireless router that features a unique design approach.

The product features an interactive display that can be used to view a variety of router status information. Views include Download/Upload "Speedometer", network bandwidth usage and even the speed of individual connected clients.

Tim Higgins

The Gotcha in Draft 11n Wi-Fi Certification

My previous post describing the D-Link DIR-655 / DWA-652's failure to switch from 40 MHz to 20 MHz channel mode when encountering a legacy WLAN, might be counter to what D-Link says is the expected behavior. But I have found that it is neither a violation of IEEE Draft 2.0 nor the Alliance's Draft 2.0 11n Certification.

Since that post, I've exchanged emails with D-Link and spoken with both Atheros and the Wi-Fi Alliance to try to find out how the D-Link products could not be performing as D-Link had described, yet receive Wi-Fi Draft 2.0 11n Certification.

Tim Higgins

Our 11n reviews resume

With the Wi-Fi Draft 11n certification process underway, I've decided its time to resume reviews of these products. This doesn't mean that I now consider the products to be "done"; far from it. But with the legitimacy of the Wi-Fi mark now being slapped on boxes, I figure someone has to see if these products are really living up to their claims.