Embedded Products by Quatech

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Solution Comparision

Embedded 802.11 offers faster, more flexible integration, while reduced development costs make 802.11 WiFi more cost–effective for everything but extremely large–scale production.

Feature	Chipset	Radio Module	PCMCIA/CF NIC	USB Adapter	WLN
Evaluation
Developers Agreement needed?	Yes $50,000+ per year	Yes	No	No	No
Interface	Compact Flash/ Mini-PCI	Compact Flash/ Mini-PCI	PCMCIA CompactFlash	USB	UART
Ease of evaluation	Hard	Hard	Medium	Medium	Easy
Evaluate in application?	No	No	Unlikely	Yes (Requires USB port)	Yes
Cost per node	$20	$45	$45	$50	$75
Cost of development	Make vs. Buy	Make vs. Buy	Make vs. Buy	Make vs. Buy	Make vs. Buy
Full scale demo?	No	No	No	No	No
OEM Developer Kit	No (SDK only)	Yes	No	No	Yes
Development
Level of integration	High (Radio only)	Medium (Radio only)	Low	Low	High (Radio + Networking)
Size of solution	Very small	Small	Big	Medium	Small
Development time	12-18 mths	9-12 mths	9-12 mths	9-12 mths	6-9 mths
RF Design required?	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Radio driver embedded?	No	No	No	No	Yes
Networking software included?	No	No	No	No	Yes
Data bridging software included?	No	No	No	No	Yes
Technical Support Level	Very High	High	High	High	Low
Private Label Branding?	N/A	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes
Maintenance
Ease of integrating new features	Difficult	Difficult	Difficult	Difficult	Easy
Upgrade radio firmware?	No	No	No	No	Yes
Automatic Radio driver upgrade?	No	No	No	No	Yes
Upgrade hardware effort	Very Difficult	Difficult	Easy	Easy	Easy
Move from 11b to 11g	Very Difficult	Difficult	Medium	Medium	Easy