802.11n Gets the Green Light

Online staff -- Electronic News, 1/20/2006

802.11n wireless LAN got a green light from the IEEE Thursday when its task group voted to make the Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC) proposal its first draft.

The group decided by a 184 to 0 margin with four abstentions, and while that may signal an end to the special interest group politics that have disrupted the standards progress in the past, it has set off a chain of competition in less than one day.

At its core, EWC-based 802.11n is expected to move at speeds up to 600Mbits/sec., a significant jump over former 802.11 family leader 802.11g’s speed and fast enough to stream high definition video and data seamlessly through the home. The big difference between 802.11g and 802.11n is .11n’s use of MIMO, or multiple input multiple output, technology, that allows for the increased speed. High hopes exist in the industry for the next-generation technology in terms of the connected home, with companies preparing to move WLAN beyond the PC and into consumer electronics like DVD players, gaming systems and digital cameras.

With those high hopes and expectations come high opportunities that some wireless players are already claiming stakes on. EWC member company Broadcom came out of the gate four hours after Thursday’s noon approval with an announced 802.11n family of chipsets. Marvell, also an EWC member company, followed with an announcement this morning, saying its chips will be in customer products this quarter.

Not all companies are expected to bring products described as “802.11n” to market, however. Airgo, for one, came out against promoting technologies as firmware upgradeable to the final 11n specification at this point in time.

“While most within the 11n task group agree that it will take just over a year to move from Draft 1.0 to .11n ratification, it is debatable as to when the draft will be stable enough to begin designing firmware upgradeable chipsets,” the company said in a statement. “Claims that chip sets based on any early draft will be firmware upgradeable to the final 11n specification are irresponsible, and may mislead consumers who do not fully understand the IEEE process.”

Airgo is not an EWC member company and has maintained its statements on early draft 802.11n technology since the group formed in October. “The draft will undergo several more rounds of review and revisions before it is stable enough to guarantee firmware upgradeability to the final ratified standard. More importantly, it will be impossible for customers to be assured of interoperability until the Wi-Fi Alliance begins such testing and certification after Q107,” the company continued.

However, Airgo did agree with the task group’s decision to move ahead, saying it believes the vote represents the best interests of both consumers and the industry since the proposal can now be evaluated and amended by all parties in an open forum. 

That sentiment was has been echoed across the board. “We enthusiastically support today’s approval of the 802.11n draft,” said Craig Barratt, president and CEO of Atheros Communications, in a separate statement. “This past October Atheros set out with the Enhanced Wireless Consortium to break the 802.11n stalemate and accelerate a draft that defines significantly higher wireless LAN performance. We have achieved this objective and are confident that our customers can now manufacture products with unprecedented performance based on our technologies that conform to this new draft.”