Agere Systems Inc. (www.agere.com) announced a wireless LAN technology capable of transmitting data at 162 Mbps in the 5 GHz frequency band, three times the throughput achieved with an 802.11a device the company says.

The technology is targeted at home networking and entertainment, as well as enterprise desktop PC applications.

The research is being done by a group of chip and systems companies at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands.

The group hopes to have a silicon solution ready by 2004. Partners include other chip makers as well as companies with systems expertise.