If Intel and others have their way, wireless LANs soon will become as much a feature of the U.S. landscape as gas pumps and automated teller machines.

Intel's formidable marketing machine was running at full tilt last week as the company - backed by partners as varied as Toshiba and McDonald's - launched mobile chip technology called Centrino, which industry watchers say could help drive wider use of Wi-Fi (802.11b) networks. The timing of the announcement fell a week before the annual Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) conference in New Orleans, where the biggest names in wireless are expected to show how Wi-Fi fits into their broadband service plans.

"There seems to be a bit of a gold-rush mentality," says Roger Entner, an analyst at The Yankee Group. "Wi-Fi is expected to bring in $1.5 billion in revenue by 2007. That's not a huge moneymaker."

It remains to be seen if Wi-Fi will be "real gold or fool's gold," he says.

Intel goes wireless

Intel, for one, is sold on Wi-Fi. Last Monday, two days before taking the wraps off Centrino, the company announced investments in four Wi-Fi start-ups (from carrier-class technology provider Pronto Networks to enterprise wireless LAN switch company Vivato) as part of a $150 million funding program it aired last fall.

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