News

10/7/2003

New EZ-Stream family of home entertainment networking products leverage high-performance Universal 802.11a/g wireless networking to distribute pictures, music and video for the ultimate digital home

SMC Networks, leading provider of networking solutions for the SOHO and Enterprise market segments, today announced its newest family of products, the EZ-Stream line of home entertainment networking products. Led by the company's new Universal Wireless Multimedia Receiver, the SMCWMR-AG, the EZ-Stream line of products is designed to distribute entertainment media-audio, pictures and streaming video-throughout the home, without wires.

The first member of the EZ-Stream family, SMC's new EZ-Stream Universal Wireless Multimedia Receiver is a high-end networked entertainment server that streams, plays and shares audio (including Internet radio), pictures and video. Connected to the wired or wireless network for access to Internet resources, music, photos and videos stored on a computer's hard drive; it links to entertainment devices, including televisions and stereo receivers, via standard A/V connectors. Employing the latest in high-end wireless 802.11a/g technology for universal compatibility, speed and bandwidth that optimizes demanding wireless applications like streaming video, SMC's EZ-Stream Digital Media Networking products deliver the broadest, best performing home entertainment networking solution available.

"We're thrilled to be leading the way in this exciting market space, leveraging our expertise in wireless home networking in collaboration with electronics leader Philips, through their joint venture with Accton," said Thierry Gonon, SMC's general manager for Europe and Africa. "Our combined expertise has resulted in the EZ-Stream line of home entertainment networking products-a high-performance entertainment networking solution for home environments."

High-performance Universal Wireless 802.11a/g products will join the EZ-Stream Universal Wireless Multimedia Receiver, which has both built-in wired and 802.11a/g wireless connectivity, to optimize connections between the server and computing, gaming or other network-capable devices. The first entrants to the EZ-Stream range of routers and adapters will include the SMC2304WBRP-AG Universal Wireless Broadband router, the SMC2362W-AG Universal Wireless USB adapter and the SMC2336W-AG Universal Wireless CardBus adapter. All these products will be available during the course of Q3, 2003 and will be priced to make upgrading the home wireless network a compelling option.

"SMC did exactly the right thing in using standards-based 802.11a/g networking technology for its home entertainment networking products," said Dana Tardelli, research director for Communications Services at Aberdeen Group in the United States. "Performance of SMC's offering will be superior to 802.11b-based offerings by providing the technological characteristics that better address the needs of media applications over a wireless home network."

www.smc-europe.com