With the launch of newer standards in Wi-Fi, we can surely expect blistering speeds of data transfer in notebooks, and that too without any wires attached.

Wi-Fi technology also known as the 802.11 utilises radio waves to provide fast and reliable wire-free data transfer medium. Up till now A, B, G standards were used in Wi-Fi that are capable of providing a maximum data transfer rate of 54 Mbits/Sec and operational range of 20m to 100 m.

Although these standards have a satisfactory data transfer rate but they lack long range connectivity. Currently 802.11 n standard is under development, draft of which is already in use. In full potential it should give data transfer rate up to 600 Mbits/Sec and operational range over 250m. Another benefit of this new standard is that it can operate at both 2.4 GHz as well as 5 GHz to minimise radio interference. Intel has developed Wi-Fi link, 5100/5300 that utilises the same 802.11 n standard.

As 802.11n standard becomes common and starts functioning to its optimal level, we will see a significant change in the working of notebooks. The only risk involved here is that of technological obsolescence, by which 802.11n standard is replaced with newer and more efficient standards (like 802.11 Y expected by 2010) before it is fully implementable.