Question: How can Apple make AirPort go faster? (The first person that says "grease its runways" gets a smack upside the head.) Because, as you know, we've all been hearing about faster AirPort implementations coming "real soon now" since, oh, we'd say roughly about the end of the Battle of Hastings. The tricky bit is that AirPort is based on the 802.11b standard, and while there's a faster 54 Mbps 802.11a floating around out there, the two aren't compatible because they operate at different frequencies-- and we doubt Apple's going to move to a standard that won't work with any existing AirPort cards or Base Stations. But there has to be a way to increase AirPort's bandwidth without sacrificing compatibility, and it has to happen sometime, right? So as long as rumormongers keep bringing it up, eventually it has to come to pass.

Seriously, we're not just saying that. If you were beginning to despair about the prospect of AirPort ever being able to break out of its 11 Mbps box, trust us; it can be done, and we have proof. According to an article in PC World, U.S. Robotics has already announced a new line of 802.11b-compatible wireless networking products that will be available in June and will run at a relatively zippy 22 Mbps-- while retaining full backward compatibility with older AirPort-style 11 Mbps devices, and providing "better range," to boot. (This is apparently that technology that was expected to become the 802.11g standard, although it sounds like the standards committee passed it over.) That all sounds great, except for one thing: it's not being made by Apple.

However, U.S. Robotics fully expects that now that it's announced the first 22 Mbps wireless products based on Texas Instruments' ACX100 chip (where all the magic happens), announcements from other companies will follow "in a matter of weeks." Could one such company be Apple? Sure, Apple likes to lead where it can-- AirPort itself was really the first consumer-priced wireless networking architecture that didn't suck-- but it's not at all out of the question that we might see an announcement of a line of me-too ACX100-based double-speed AirPort products within a month or two.

Or maybe not. Faithful viewer Joe Radosevich tells us that Mac OS Rumors is cranking out tales of a new set of AirPort gear that Apple has been schlepping to secret demos for certain Left Coast educational institutions. Apparently Apple has pooh-poohed this whole "twice as fast" nonsense and really gone for the throat, wirelessly speaking; allegedly this stuff somehow manages to do its thing at a whopping 112 Mbps, representing a full tenfold increase in bandwidth, and with a range boost, too. A tenfold increase? Considering that the technology that was going to be 802.11g reportedly tops out at 54 Mbps, it sounds like Apple just may have told backward compatibility to take a hike after all.

Then again, 802.11a (the incompatible wireless standard just coming to market) reportedly maxes out at 54 Mbps, too, so we really have no idea what Apple may have done to more than double that speed. Assuming the reports are true, all we can guess is that dark and arcane magicks are involved. And possibly animal sacrifice.