It's official! Tri-mode wireless race is on.

This new wrinkle will also give consumers yet another choice to absorb in a product category (draft-802.11g) that is not yet an official standard. Although NETGEAR's announcement makes repeated references to "business-class" and "enterprise", it's extremely doubtful that enterprise customers will adopt this new gear until the 802.11g standard is officially ratified in July.

Also complicating buy decisions will be the fact that NETGEAR's previously announced Intersil-based draft-11g WG511 Wireless PC Card, WG602 Wireless Access Point, and WGR614 Wireless Router have yet to begin.

Pricing was not announced for any of the Atheros-based products.