IEEE 802.11 is a standard that defines specific physical (PHY) layers and a medium access control (MAC) layer for wireless networking; this idea of layers being part of the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model. Dell's wireless cards comply to this specification, providing 11Mbps of bandwidth over the 2.4GHz band while being theoretically compatible with other IEEE 802.11 compliant cards. Several companies currently ship products using this standard. The most widespread production appears to be by Apple, who uses IEEE 802.11 in their Airport wireless networking system.

The Dell solution happens to be particularly user friendly. It includes a CD with a 15-minute video explaining how to set up a wireless network. A Dell representative we spoke with claimed that, of the 7000 or so cards that were shipped, Dell received a grand total of seven technical support calls. That is an amazingly low number of tech calls.

The cards currently work on a peer to peer basis, with 10-15 machines working at once. Eventually, Dell will ship a hub station, letting users set up a DHCP network server and TCP/IP gateway without having to use one machine as a hub. When we tested the cards, we used a peer to peer network with one machine providing DHCP service and acting as a host for...Unreal Tournament!