Just as consumers are getting used to surfing the Internet on home wireless networks, Atheros Communications is hoping they'll embrace multimedia wireless networks using an upcoming product that improves the quality and range of wireless signals.

Atheros makes wireless LAN chipsets for WLAN equipment vendors. It plans to release the AR5005VA chipset later this year to bring improved wireless networking capabilities to consumer electronics devices such as DVD players, set-top boxes and digital televisions, Atheros President and CEO Craig Barratt said.

Atheros envisions the new chipset as the brains behind an unconnected home media network in which a set-top box or PC share multiple video signals with flat-panel televisions arrayed around the home, Barratt said.

The chipset adds smart-antenna technology to improve range and signal quality, Barratt said. Smart antennas make use of multiple antennas and sophisticated chips to actively search for wireless devices and beam their signals directly to those devices, rather than simply broadcasting a signal over a wide area like "dumb" antennas.

The AR5005VA chipset will also include a predraft version of the 802.11e standard for wireless quality of service. The 802.11e standard is designed to address some of the problems that plagued early wireless home media networks, such as dropped frames from videos or poor audio quality.

Customers who purchase products based on the predraft standard will be able to download the completed standard when it is finalized by the IEEE, Barratt said. The IEEE is currently considering final proposals for 802.11e, and the ratified standard should be available early next year.

The features enabled by the draft 802.11e standard are too important to wait for the final standard, Barratt said. There is a chance the IEEE could alter the standard beyond the point at which it would be available as a software update, but Atheros is confident that the final standard will very closely resemble the draft standard, he said.

That was the case when chip manufacturers such as Broadcom released products based on the draft standard for 802.11g, said Will Strauss, principal analyst with Forward Concepts in Tempe, Ariz. The final 802.11g standard was available as a software download, and Broadcom carved out a commanding lead in the market for 802.11g silicon because it was first to market with a product, he said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.