Intel Corp. has confirmed that it would enable higher-speed wireless networking on the next-generation Centrino platform. Additionally, the company announced an 802.11n interoperability program to enable infrastructure for the new mobile platforms

The 802.11n standard promises to increase transfer speed of wireless networks to about 600Mb/s while maintaining compatibility with currently deployed 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi networks. There were two groups that proposed 802.11n standards to IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers): World-Wide Spectrum Efficiency (WWiSE) group and Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC) which standards were not completely compatible between each other. Recently IEEE approved EWC-proposed 802.11n draft standard effectively splitting the developers of the 802.11n into two camps, one of which can start making equipment now and another should wait till the final standard approval.

The next-generation mobile platform code-named Santa Rosa will contain a new Wi-Fi solution that will be compliant with the emerging 802.11n specification. To ensure optimal user experience with this solution before the 802.11n specification is officially approved, Intel has created an 802.11n interoperability program, working with leading access point vendors – including Buffalo, D-Link, Linksys and Netgear – to perform interoperability, performance, range and stability testing.

Intel’s code-named Santa Rosa mobile platform will feature code-named Merom processor with 800MHz processor system bus, new core-logic code-named Crestline with DirectX 10 shader model 4.0-compatible built-in graphics core, Intel NAND technology that boosts performance of hard disk drives, code-named Kedron wireless network controller compliant with an 802.11n standard, which will increase bandwidth to up to 600Mb/s, and some other innovations. Instead of BIOS, the new platform will support UEFI, an interface that helps hand off control of the system for the pre-boot environment (i.e.: after the system is powered on, but before the operating system starts) to an operating system, such as Windows or Linux.