Texas Instruments Accelerates Wireless Ethernet Industry With Royalty-Free Licenses for IEEE 802.11g High-Rate Technology
22 Mbps Solutions Enable High-Performance Applications For Home and Office Networks
SANTA ROSA, CA (Jan. 10, 2000) -- In an effort to quickly satisfy the growing demand for higher-performance, standards-based Wireless Ethernet technology, Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE:TXN) today announced it will offer royalty-free licenses under TI patents required for implementation of IEEE 802.11g, pending ratification of TI's proposal as the new IEEE 802.11g standard for higher speed wireless local area networks (WLAN) in the 2.4GHz band. Moving ahead, TI's royalty-free offering, which extends the successful IEEE 802.11b standard to higher data rates, will enable WLAN manufacturers to rapidly deliver a richer variety of higher-performance, interoperable wireless home and office networking applications such as HDTV and streaming video.
"By offering royalty-free, higher-rate WLAN technology to the IEEE 802.11g standardization effort, TI is driving industry momentum, since TI's technology will be fundamental in enabling high-performance applications," said Gemma Paulo, industry analyst for Cahners In-stat. "With this offering, TI is removing potential barriers to the commercial adoption of their solution, which is an instant upgrade in Wireless Ethernet performance."
Adoption of the TI proposal by the IEEE 802.11g Task Group will double the data rate of IEEE 802.11b-based products to 22 Mbps in a manner that is fully backwards compatible and interoperable with existing IEEE 802.11b products. Moreover, TI's technology is designed to comply with all existing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requirements and is intended for use in Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi)-certified applications. End users are expected to benefit from the deployment of high-rate TI-based WLAN products as early as the second quarter of 2001.
Proposal Offers Rapid Path Toward Improved Performance and Functionality
TI's proposal emerged as a principal high rate technology candidate from the November 2000 IEEE 802.11g Task Group meeting due to its simplicity of implementation, full compliance with existing standards, and its ability to offer the highest data rate within the allocated RF spectrum.
The high-rate patents associated with TI's proposal to the IEEE 802.11g Task Group will be licensed royalty-free on a worldwide basis. Alternative proposals are known to embody intellectual property from third parties where substantial royalties are today required. These issues are extremely important to the WLAN industry as it seeks to establish a clean and rapid path towards greater performance and functionality. Adoption of TI's proposal will help the industry quickly roll out significant product improvements.
"We're pleased to provide WLAN component and systems developers full access to standards-based, cost-effective solutions for higher performance," said Mike Hogan, general manager for TI's Wireless Networking Business Unit. "Licensing our higher-rate Wireless Ethernet patents free of royalties is an important part of our strategy to provide a continuum of high-performance broadband connectivity. Details of the licensing offer are contained in TI's written statement to the IEEE."
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Safe Harbor Statement: Statements contained in this press release regarding the demand for Wireless Ethernet technology, the ratification of TI's IEEE proposal, the deployment, performance of Wireless Ethernet products and other statements of management's beliefs, goals and expectations may be considered "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. The following factors and the factors discussed in TI's most recent Form 10-K could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements contained in this press release: the introduction of new and competitive technologies; changes in customer intentions or preferences; TI's ability to meet manufacturing and capacity demands; and other factors affecting market growth or production. We disclaim any intention or obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of developments occurring after the date of this press release.
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