Cisco Systems’ Linksys division Tuesday announced a powerful new 802.11G home/small business wireless broadband router for local area Internet networks that is expected to deliver data speeds “a magnitude” faster than current G-level routers, an industry analyst told eWEEK.com.

Linksys’ newest Wireless-G (802.11g) Broadband Router uses MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) and so-called smart radio and antenna technology with standards-based Wireless-G to deliver data speeds “right around the 54M-bps level,” IDC networking analyst Jean Kaplan said.

“To put this into perspective: Realistically, most (802.11) B-level routers are supposed to transport 11M bps, when in reality they only move 1M bps most of the time,” Kaplan said.

Click here to read about what notebook vendors are doing with MIMO wireless technology.

“G-level routers are supposed to get up to 54M bps, but in reality, they usually deliver about 5 to 6M bps. These new MIMO routers are capable of 100M bps, but they will in fact deliver right around the 50M- to 54M-bps level.

“In any case, you will notice a marked difference between these new MIMO products … [and] the older ones. And the difference between the 50M-bps and 100M-bps data speed really isn’t that noticeable to most people,” Kaplan said.

Read the rest of this eWEEK story: “Cisco’s MIMO Router Delivers Faster Data Speeds”. Note that the Linksys router uses a chipset from Airgo Networks, which on Wednesday said it was sampling a third-generation MIMO chipset capable of 240-Mbit speeds in time for routers to ship during the fourth quarter.