Wireless LAN ICs work with Cisco

Single-chip 802.11n devices for the PC market are the first wireless LAN chipsets to be certified for the new Cisco Compatible Extensions Programme Version 5.

The Xspan AR9280 and AR9281 single-chip 802.11n devices for the PC market from Atheros Communications are also the first wireless LAN chipsets to be certified for the new Cisco Compatible Extensions Programme Version 5 (CCX V5).

Xspan is the industry's most widely adopted 802.11n technology, and is contained in a breadth of products worldwide, including PCs for the enterprise and consumer markets, retail, enterprise and carrier networking equipment, and consumer electronics devices.

Several PC OEMs are currently launching notebook platforms that feature Atheros' popular dual-band AR9280 or single-band AR9281 PCI Express (PCIe) designs to bring industry-leading 802.11n performance, and power and cost efficiencies to their customers.

With this latest Cisco Compatibility Extensions certification, PC OEMs using Atheros' Xspan can assure enterprise customers of platform interoperability with Cisco's latest wireless infrastructure.

Cisco's Compatible Extensions Programme Version 5 enables state-of-the-art enterprise-class security, management and troubleshooting capabilities for a wide array of mobile devices.

This newest version of Cisco Compatible Extensions not only protects data frames - as addressed by the 802.11i standard - but also secures management frames with a layer of authentication and encryption to prevent network denial of service attacks through the WLAN.

The management frame protection provides additional enhancements to wireless security, and instantly detects and reports attacks to Cisco's wireless control system (WCS) to facilitate timely and accurate network management.

The specification also significantly expands troubleshooting capabilities by providing automated diagnostic tests and reporting to the network management system for performance evaluation, application guarantees and problem solving.

"Cisco Compatible Extensions Version 5 helps ensure optimum performance and interoperability with Cisco's Unified Wireless Network and Mobility Services", says Christophe Servais, Cisco's Marketing Manager of Mobility Solutions.

"Atheros provides a combination of industry-leading 802.11n performance with state-of-the-art Compatible Extensions interoperability to PC customers who wish to enhance the quality of wireless computing, voice, location and other enterprise applications and services".

Atheros Xspan PCIe solutions deliver high bandwidth 802.11n performance for enterprise notebooks of up to 300Mbit/s physical datarates per band.

The Atheros solutions certified as Cisco Compatible Extensions support important industry standards including WMM (Wi-Fi Multimedia), and Wi-Fi Protected Set-Up via Atheros' JumpStart for Wireless, the company's industry standardised simple network configuration software.

"All of Atheros' client solutions are capable of supporting Cisco Compatible Extensions to enable a better wireless user and IT management experience", said Todd Antes, Vice President of Wireless Networking and Computing for Atheros.

"Today, enterprise network administrators are faced with the challenge of intelligently managing an increasing number and variety of devices connected to the wireless LAN - from notebook PCs to MIDs to handsets".

"Cisco Compatible Extensions Version 5 provides the latest tools to help simplify wireless LAN management and provide enterprise-class bullet-proof security".

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