Does anybody know if the 770's implementation of 802.11g can exploit either the Speedboost or MIMO extensions in the latest Linksys routers? I'm inclined to think not. Not yet. Speedboost (Linksys WRT54GS router) can only be exploited if you have a matching Linksys wireless card that supports the Speedboost extension and are running Windows XP. The speed increase is 35% if you can meet the 'requirements', i.e., your device has to implement the same protocol that the router does (Speedboost, MIMO, whatever).

The speed increase of MIMO over 802.11g is 100% (double) IF you have the matching GX card from Linksys or IF it's implemented in your device. The reviewers I've read really like MIMO. So does Nokia's investment group - it made a significant cash investment in Airgo, the MIMO pioneer. MIMO is twice as fast because it uses two of the three non-overlapping channels available in the b/g spectrum (1,6,11)

If your Internet link is only a dsl modem or cable modem then you won't see any improvement in accessing the Internet. The performance advantages of these new wireless standards only going to boost local network speeds. If you're streaming Video and you have it on both sides of the wireless connection then MIMO can pay off. It had better, since the MIMO router is about 4 times the price of the Linksys WRT54g router. I'd like to see a statement from Nokia that explains whether anything about the 770 can exploit either SpeedBoost or MIMO. I don't expect to see any mention of it, though. Without the 770 supporting anything beyond 802.11g nobody is going to get any improvement in speed or range from these latest Linsys routers that they were already getting from the WRT54g routers.

Then there's the issue of which WRT54 router, too. Until version 5 the router's firmware was based on Linux and could be overwritten with any of the several free versions of Linux firmware. If anyone buys a version 5 WRT make sure it's the WRT54gL version. Any WRT54 router with a lower version than 5 is OK, too, of course.

This is a big win for Linksys because Nokia has more sales outlets for its products than anybody on the planet.

If we see MIMO on a 770 or a 770 follow-up then high speed Video streaming over the local network will be something it's easily capable of. I'm thinking follow-up. When MIMO arrives for some future version of the 770 (assuming we won't see it on the 770) then wireless speeds will exceed the speed of Fast Ethernet and range will at least double.