Intel Santa Rosa mobile platform

Draft 802.11n

One of the stalwarts of Intel’s Centrino brand has always been its integrated wireless technology. We’ve been through a couple of revisions over the years and Santa Rosa moves the goal posts again with the introduction of the Draft 802.11n standard.

This is implemented via Intel’s new WiFi Link 4965AGN wireless module, which gives a 300Mbps theoretical maximum bandwidth. This is over five times as much bandwidth as was available with the 802.11g standard, which offered 54Mbps at its maximum.

The Draft N standard actually states the maximum theoretical bandwidth of 540Mbps, but virtually all Draft N hardware that’s already available on the market advertises a maximum of 300Mbps. With that said though, actual real world performance isn’t going to get anywhere near the maximum – current Draft N kit has been hitting around 60-70Mbps.


In addition, the Draft N standard uses MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technology, which allows multiple data streams to be sent simultaneously to improve throughput. MIMO also helps to improve wireless range too, which should be useful in the UK, where our walls are typically much thicker than in other parts of the world. Santa Rosa also makes use of channel bonding too, which allows twice the amount of data to be sent across the network.

All of this combined together should mean that we’ll be able to stream high definition video across the home, wirelessly. This is something that couldn’t really be said for 802.11g.