The Wi-Fi Alliance said on Tuesday it will begin next year to give its seal of approval to new products that wirelessly send high definition video around the house using a faster version of the popular short range technology called Wi-Fi.
The alliance, whose members include heavyweights such as Intel Corp, Texas Instruments Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and Motorola Inc, currently certifies products based on Wi-Fi, a wireless technology built into most new laptops and widely used for Web surfing today. The group said that in the first half of next year it will start certifying products that can download Web pages at a rate of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) compared with typical Wi-Fi speeds of 25 Mbps.
The products will be based on an early version of a standard known as 802.11n, which is expected to be fully ratified in 2008, according to Frank Hanzlik, managing director of the Wi-Fi alliance. Hanzlik said he expects a variety of consumer electronics manufacturers to build the technology into everything from televisions to computers. "It's something that's very interesting for consumer electronics companies," he said in an interview. "The manufacturers will deploy this in a variety of form factors."