Introduction

The wireless networking world seems to have lost interest in 802.11a wireless LAN products. Although its advantages of operating in a quieter frequency band, significantly faster maximum data rate, and more non-interfering channels than 802.11b were attractive, its range problems and cost premium caused many prospective buyers to look, but not buy.

One of the best kept secrets of the WLAN world, however, seems to be the significantly improved performance of Atheros' second generation 802.11a designs. I recently stumbled across this discovery while testing NETGEAR's Atheros-based WAG511 dual-band, tri-mode CardBus card [reviewed here], and was so pleasantly surprised that I felt that it deserved an NTK of its own.