3Com launches 11g line

3Com today announced its OfficeConnect Wireless 11g product line at CeBIT America.

The new line consists of the Wireless 11g Access Point ($135), Gateway ($125), and PC Card ($79) (prices are estimated street). The PC Card will be available at the end of this month , with the AP and Gateway following in July .

All three products are based on Intersil's PRISM GT chipset, are 802.11g spec compliant and feature Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) support. The AP and Gateway use Intersil's ISL3893 WiSOC (Wireless System-on-a-Chip) that eliminates the need for a separate network processor and is helping 3Com establish its aggressive pricing on its new line.

The AP features a "Zero Configuration" setup where it automatically gets IP address info from an existing LAN DCHP server, and sets itself to the least busy wireless channel. It also includes a Client Bridge mode that turns the AP into a single client wireless to Ethernet adapter, but does not support Point-to-Point / Point-to-Multipoint bridging or wireless repeating.

Gateway features include Clear Channel detection, an SPI-based firewall, "hacker pattern detection", VPN pass through for multiple PPTP, IPsec, or L2TP sessions, and URL filtering. The Gateway does not support wireless bridging or repeating features.

The PC card is CardBus-based and, in a break from what seems to be the norm from other manufacturers, includes a Client Manager application that will include a WPA supplicant . This means that users of non-XP versions of Windows will not need to purchase a third-party application in order to take advantage of WPA's enhanced security.

3Com said that they plan to have a USB2.0-based client adapter available, but are waiting for a key device to become available that will enable the sub-$100 pricing expected by the market. Dual-band, tri-mode products are also planned for this fall, most likely based on Atheros chipsets.