Intel Putting Wi-Fi into Future Chipsets

Ridgelift writes "Wired's got the story on Intel's plan to incorporate Wi-Fi into the motherboard chipset. "The chipset, however, will not include an actual Wi-Fi radio, so users will still need a wireless add-on card. Intel has said it eventually intends build a Wi-Fi radio into its microprocessors." This would make setting up a wireless network a lot simpler."

Comments

Is wifi on CPU a good idea?

[brejc8]

It's all very well putting more peripherals onto processors but with the shrinking feature sizes and an increase in cross talk is placing a powerful 2.4GHz source on die really a good idea? You would have to shorten long lines and slow down the processor or suffer random errors. Doesn't inspire me with confidence.

Intel linux support sucks

[pe1rxq]

They will probably promise to provide Linux driver like with the centrino chipset and then not even make specs available.
You will get all kind of lame excuses:
- We are working on a driver.... (For half a year already)
- We can't tell you how to operate it because the FCC won't let us (Complete bullshit but sounds nice: 'linux hackers want to interfere with police radio')
- They might release some binary only modules... (Redhat version bla.bla, kernel version bla.bla and nothing else)

Jeroen

Re:Intel linux support sucks

[Homology]

Intel are not forthcoming with documentation about NIC and crypto. Here is what OpenBSD has to say about this
OpenBSD experience with Intel :


Much like Intel does for all their networking division components, and completely unlike most other vendors, Intel steadfastly refuses to provide us with documentation. We have talked to about five technical people who are involved in the development of those products. They all want us to have documentation. They commend us on what we have done. But their hands are tied by management who does not perceive a benefit to themselves for providing documentation. Forget about Intel. (If you want to buy gigabit ethernet hardware, we recommend anything else... for the same reason: most drivers we have for Intel networking hardware were written without documentation).

Really?

[odyrithm]

This would make setting up a wireless network a lot simpler.

Woah there, whats so hard with the way its setup now? pcmcia is a matter of plug and go, pci is a matter of modprobe if that.. theres nothing hard about wifi... its a nic with a wireless medium.. thats all.

Now if intel had some new fangled wep replacement then that would make things simple, no more mac rules on my fw would be nice.. which is unlikely.

What's the point?

[bobthemuse]

The chipset, however, will not include an actual Wi-Fi radio, so users will still need a wireless add-on card. Intel has said it eventually intends build a Wi-Fi radio into its microprocessors.

Why put in a chipset without a radio? Maybe one could argue an attempt to get market share by making their add-on card cheaper than the others (just radio, no chipset), but this card will have a more limited market, since it wouldn't be compatible with older or non-intel mobos.

Now if the were to put a software radio on board, *that* would be cool! Think of upgrading to future standards with just a flash rom upgrade...

Unintentional network compromises through bridging

[AgTiger]

I sincerely hope they're going to have these things configured in one of the following manners:

1. Disable the Wi-Fi by default
2. If not disabled, seed the encryption key with a pseudorandom number before the user specifically configures it.

You don't want new computers forming unintended bridges or access points between the untrusted network/airspace and your trusted internal network between when they're first powered up and when the overworked sysadmin has a chance to configure them properly. So much for your company's firewalls having a chance to do their job.

There are other problems

[plusser]

The reason why Intel probably don't want to integrate the Micoprocessor with the actual WiFi transmitter and receiver is quite simple. If they add it inside the IC, they will have to go through radio use approval for every different potential market in the world, before they sell a single component. By letting the motherboard/add on card manufacturer's do this instead, they can concentrate on developing better microprocessors.

As somebody in the know, I do worry that these new WiFi enabled equipment could be the next mobile phone when it come to interference of avionic systems; especially as many modern microprocessors are prone to soft faults at altitude due to the effects of the upper atmosphere.

Bluetooth?

[ybmug]

802.11a/b/g on board would be nice.. but, I would really like to see more motherboards coming with bluetooth onboard. This would seem to make sense with things like keyboard, mice, headsets, and cellphones that are bluetooth enabled coming to market.

Re:Why do companies expand into other est business

[Artifex]

I think it's silly how Intel is now embracing a trend to include features already provided by another market. Intel will probalby do this witout adding more than 20 employees and in turn drive about 10,000 people out of jobs due to their companies going out of business.

Oh, yes, it's Intel's fault if 20 of their employees can make a product better suited to the market than 10,000 other peoples' efforts.

By the same token, buses and trains and taxis have all taken jobs away from the good hard-working people with horse-drawn taxis. And we really should go back to rooms full of seamstresses making clothing by hand, like before those evil industrial looms were created. Oh, and the cotton for the clothes (synthetics put farmers out of work) should be picked by immigrant laborers.

It's not society's obligation to prop up inefficient methods of production; quite the contrary. There's a word us old-timers use sometimes. It's called "progress." Might want to study it.