VANCOUVER, British Columbia-Sierra Wireless Inc. says it expects to begin shipping wireless wide area network cards supporting CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Revision A networks during the first quarter of 2007. The company added that WWAN cards supporting HSDPA technology should be available later in the year.
Sierra Wireless said its AirCard 597E Rev. A cards will be compatible with notebook computers using the company’s ExpressCard expansion slots and will be fully compliant with network operator requirements.
The Rev. A cards enable features such as Assisted GPS location-based services via a fixed antenna design and an external antenna jack for flexibility and improved reception in fringe coverage areas or for specialized applications, Sierra Wireless said.
The card’s peak data speeds are said to be 3.1 megabits per second on the downlink and 1.8 Mbps on the uplink when operating on a Rev. A network, but the new card is also backward compatible with EV-DO Release 0 and 1x networks.
Sierra Wireless plans to also continue to produce AirCard products in the Type II PC Card form factor to serve the established base of notebook users with PC Card slots. For those with PC Card slots who wish to purchase an ExpressCard product in anticipation of an upcoming notebook upgrade, the company said it plans to offer an ExpressCard-to-PC Card adapter accessory.
“Notebook installations of ExpressCard slots are expected to move toward critical mass in 2007-we are timing our ExpressCard products to match market adoption,” said Trent Punnett, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development at Sierra Wireless. “The AirCard 597E delivers a fresh new industrial design with a fixed antenna that is not compromised by the smaller form factor-our engineering team has designed the antenna to provide performance comparable to our new AirCard 595 PC Card.”
