Apple Inc. to charge for 802.11n upgrade

Apple Inc. to charge for 802.11n upgrade

Apple Inc. has said that owners of Apple Computers with 802.11n-capable hardware would be required to pay a nominal fee of $1.99 for enabler software to let them use the faster connectivity.

This comes after the company introduced the new AirPort Extreme wireless networking base station. This device supports the draft of the IEEE’s forthcoming 802.11n fast Wi-Fi standard.

This technology would provide support for speed five times that of 802.11g, and double the range. Apple interestingly has been selling notebook products in the market since quite sometime which comes loaded with this hardware.

Customers would be required to download and install software to enable this feature on their machines. And Apple wants them to pay a $1.99 fee for this download.

This would be applicable to owners of Intel Core 2 Duo and Intel Xeon-equipped Macs. The entry-level 1.83GHz, 17 in iMac is not supported.

Apple spoke about the necessity of charging for this update: “The nominal distribution fee for the 802.11n software is required in order for Apple to comply with generally accepted accounting principles for revenue recognition, which generally require that we charge for significant feature enhancements, such as 802.11n, when added to previously purchased products.”