Compromise Begins on 802.11n

By Suzanne Deffree -- Electronic News, 3/18/2005

The TGn Sync group may have won the IEEE's 802.11n confirmation vote in Atlanta on Thursday, but members of the WWiSE group say they are not out of the running.

According to an e-mail yesterday afternoon from an Atheros Communications executive on the IEEE voting floor, the TGn Sync group's proposal had won out over the WWiSE group's proposal when members of the IEEE task group voted 181 to 140 in favor of the TGn Sync proposal.

"With the first vote of 178 TGn Sync to 153 WWiSE, the WWiSE proposal technically disappears from consideration as the 11n standard," the exec at the TGn Sync-sided company, said, asking for his name to be withheld. "TGn Sync is now the only option on the table."

The two proposals were, up until Thursday, the only ones left in the running for the up-coming 802.11n wireless LAN standard, which is expected to run at 100Mbits/sec., fast enough to stream video through a home. Officially, a 75 percent supermajority is necessary, however, to adopt a proposal as is. The 181 to 140 vote did not provide this, points out Airgo Networks.

"A 47 [percent vote] versus a 53 percent really means it's equal in the IEEE process," Greg Raleigh, president and CEO of the WWiSE-oriented company, told Electronic News. "One draft has the opportunity to get 75 percent – [TGn Sync] already failed the first vote – and it's misleading to think that somehow one of these two proposals can get anywhere without getting together. … This is what the IEEE process is designed to do, it forces compromise. This is how you end up with really good technology for the consumer."

Members of both groups have openly said they are willing to compromise to get to standard. Collectively, the companies involved in TGn Sync – including Atheros, Intel and Philips – and those involved in WWiSE – such as Broadcom and Airgo – will now negotiate to a final standard based on the TGn Sync proposal.

"Broadcom is looking forward to actively working to bring the WWiSE and TGn Sync proposals together into a unified standard that will best address the implementation requirements of all the interested parties," Hooman Honary, senior strategic technologist at Broadcom, said. "We're encouraged by the constructive cooperation we've seen from the TGn Sync participants and look forward to achieving a compromise soon so the industry can quickly get to a standard and move Wi-Fi forward."

The IEEE will vote again in May. However, Raleigh does not expect a first draft at the spring meeting.

"We're hopeful that July is the time this gets done. We think that we have to go through the process of voting Sync again, get that taken care of, then work to compromise hopefully by July. Maybe by May, but the way things are going I think that will be difficult."