Belkin settles wireless class action suit

Belkin has settled a class action lawsuit that claimed some of the company's wireless LAN products did not meet advertised speed and range claims.

The lawsuit (Shannahoff v. Belkin Corporation) claimed that Belkin made and sold select models of its wireless LAN products that did not achieve advertised transmission rates and connectivity range under alleged “real-world” operating conditions.

The 37 products covered in the settlement include Belkin's 802.11g, "Pre-N", and Wireless G Plus MIMO products. Belkin's "N1" draft 11n products are not included in the suit or settlement.

Belkin enters SMB Network Monitoring Biz

Belkin today announced its entry into the network monitoring market with a product targeting SMB networks.

Belkin's Pulse is a network monitoring system built on Jumpnode Systems’ appliance-enabled software (AeS) service platform that combines a plug-and-play appliance with a hosted software solution.

Belkin Cable Free USB: Slow, Expensive, Cutting Edge Technology

Belkin prepping certified wireless USB hub

With Freescale gone from the UltraWideBand market, Belkin is moving on to fully join the ranks of "Certified Wireless USB" vendors. Belkin showed a new version of wireless USB hub and dongle at last week's Consumer Electronics show.

The Wireless USB Hub with Wireless USB Adapter uses certified wireless USB technology from WiQuest, instead of the Wisair chipset used in its "Cable-Free USB Hub" which is just starting to become widely available. The datasheet for the product specs throughput at "up to 80Mbps of real throughput" and says it will interoperate with other certified wireless USB devices.

The new product is slated to be available in May at $199.99 suggested list.

Belkin's Wi-Fi Phone for Skype Breaks Out of the Pack

Belkin adds Boingo support to Wi-Fi Skype phone

Belkin today announced that it has added support for using its Wi-Fi Phone for Skype with Boingo Wireless hot spots. This makes Belkin the first company to address one of the weaknesses of the current crop of Wi-Fi Skype phones; the inability to be used with wireless hot spots that require browser-based authentication.

A Belkin spokesperson said that the authentication will be done using Boingo's embedded Wi-Fi toolkit, which is basically a configuration file that provides the credentials to authenticate to each Boingo hotspot type. Belkin also said that a firmware upgrade for current Wi-Fi Phone users will be available "by mid December" for download from Belkin's website.

Belkin Wi-Fi Phone users can sign up for a Boingo Mobile Unlimited account, which gives them unlimited access to Boingo hot spots, for only $7.95 per month.

Belkin says mid-December for UWB USB hub shipment

Belkin issued a brief press release this morning that said its Cable-Free USB Hub will be "available for purchase in mid-December".

The F5U301 Cable-Free USB Hub lists for $199.99 and is based on Wisair silicon. It supports a single wireless UWB connection between the supplied USB adapter plugged into a computer and wired USB devices connected into the four port Cable-Free USB Hub.

Belkin N1 Wireless Router: Neighbor-Friendly but Flawed Draft 11n

MIMO Router Face-Off

Do Extended-range WLAN technologies deliver?