CES: Wireless wows 'em at crowded Vegas show

Network World - "It was very overwhelming."

That was how Andrew Hintz, Internet technology director for the California Democratic Party, summed up Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates' razzle-dazzle digital lifestyle presentation at the recent sprawling, hyperkinetic International Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

He pretty well summed up the entire event, which spread from the massive Las Vegas Convention Center to the merely big Sands Convention Center, to accommodate 2,500 exhibitors and an estimated 100,000 daily visitors, including Hollywood types such as singer Justin Timberlake and actor Morgan Freeman. The event pulsed with music and lights, and featured an astonishing number of companies whose sole reason for being seems to be creating accessories for Apple's iPod music player.

But digging deeper into CES announcements and demonstrations shows why the event has become such a draw, particularly in the areas of wireless and mobile computing.

Solid advances were evident at the show, though conflicts over standardizing some technologies and complex user interfaces and configuration schemes remain stubborn obstacles.

The biggest name in chips, Intel Corp., formally unveiled two systems based on its latest processors and chip sets: notebooks based on the Centrino Duo technology, formerly known as Napa, and Viiv (rhymes with "five") home entertainment PCs.

Intel's first dual-core version of the Pentium M processor is now known as Core Duo. This chip will provide the basis for all of Intel's processors starting later this year. The Centrino Duo package will feature the Core Duo processor, a mobile-optimized chip set, and an upgraded wireless chip set that supports 802.11a/b/g.

Atheros Communications demonstrated a new MIMO chip set that delivers data at rates as high as 300Mbit/sec., with enough range to blanket a typical home. Broadcom Corp. unveiled what it says is the first Wi-Fi chip set designed for video phones. It's aimed at mobile and desktop phones. The chip set packages a Broadcom voice-over-IP processor, its 802.11b/g WLAN chip and a chip designed for video processing.

Broadband wireless

Samsung Corp. demonstrated notebooks and smart phones communicating over its WiBro wireless broadband network, based on the mobile WiMax standard, IEEE 802.16e. Korea's leading telco, KT Corp., plans to go live with a WiBro net this spring, using Samsung's base stations, network core gear and handsets carrying a 802.16e radio.


The demo showed a laptop receiving streaming video, three others doing videoconferencing and a handful of Samsung smart phones doing messaging and sharing pictures over the WiMax connection. With everything running full-bore, the demo network had 800Kbit/sec. for the downlink and 550Kbit/sec. for the uplink. KT expects to