AirPort Blog

Smith Micro's QuickLink Mobile for Mac OS X now supports additional options for cell data support over USB or Bluetooth or via a PC Card and a driver. The latest version adds EDGE, PC Card driver support, and Wi-Fi profile management. EDGE is a roughly 100 Kbps service offered nationwide by AT&T Wireless. The only comparable high-speed network is run by Verizon in just two cities. Cingular, which is acquiring AT&T Wireless also offers EDGE in limited areas, but will have national coverage by this summer even without AT&T Wireless's network being integrated. EDGE plans cost about $50 per month for unlimited usage; less with certain packages.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OrangeWare offers $15 driver to Mac users to pick up extra speed: Mac users now have access to many more options for wireless networking through the OrangeWare driver, which can support a/g cards that use chips from Atheros, including its Super G features, which include compression and frame bursting, among other non-radio-frequency improvements in speed among similar devices. A free trial version is available for download. (Some competitors and testing labs believe that the Turbo mode causes interference with nearby non-Turbo Wi-Fi networks. Atheros denies this.)

The driver lists support for a couple dozen cards (PC Cards and PCI cards) and works with Mac OS X 10.2 or later. These cards are typically less than $50 or even as low as $30, while an internal AirPort Extreme Card--if available for a given model--is $100. The driver only shows WEP, not WPA support.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)