802.11n Hits Another Snag

Written by Adam Gosling

Wednesday, 03 May 2006

Draft 1.0 of the increasingly controversial 802.11n WLAN standard was today voted down by the IEEE working group reinforcing the point that users make the switch at their own risk. As if to drive home the point Gartner analysts Ken Dulaney and Rachna Ahlawat have made about pre-n wireless networking gear, the IEEE working group guiding the specifications through the standards process has voted down the Draft that recently released hardware is claiming to be compliant. The 802.11 standards process is all but broken after spending most of last year in-fighting between the vested interests of semiconductor and hardware manufacturers only to finally reach an agreement milestone at the beginning of this year. That cooperation hasn’t lasted long though, a vote to approve the Draft 1.0 of the proposed 802.11n standard failed to reach the 75 per cent majority required for acceptance. In fact, the Draft, which hardware vendors such as Linksys and NETGEAR have based their latest pre-n standard networking equipment on failed to gain even a simple majority with only 46.6 per cent voting to move the specifications to the next step in the protracted standards process. It means its back to the drawing broad for the standard which will have to progress to a second draft to try to get agreement. While Gartner has come out highly critical of manufacturers claiming compliance to the 802.11n standard based on the Draft 1.0 specification, it does admit that some small business might benefit from adopting the technology now. Even so, it strongly warned off enterprise users from making the switch as any hardware built now is almost certain to need at least firmware upgrades to meet the final specifications. Depending on how the rest of the standards process works out it may not be upgradeable at all. The technology is unlikely to settle into a standard before the end of this year and there’ll be no fully compliant product until at least early 2007 Gartner is trying to tell everybody. Whether frustrated WLAN owners are willing to wait for fully interoperable networking kit, or whether they proceed directly to the pre-standard n gear might come down to need though. Related news items New Flash Memeory Card Standard Coming -16/09/2007 Broadcom Enthusisam for 802.11n Wavers -06/09/2007 ASUS A686/696 GPS PDA -23/08/2007 D-Link Ships Half A Million Draft N Devices -14/08/2007 HP Plans More iPaqs As PDAs Become Smartphones -12/08/2007 Newer news items The End Of Open WLAN Standards -16/08/2006 Linksys RangeBooster Plays Nicely With Other Nets -07/08/2006 WLAN Cams Get Tilt/Pan -23/07/2006 Netgear Draft-N Products Labelled RangeMax NEXT. -11/07/2006 Draft n Gets Interoperability Showcase -31/05/2006 Older news items Netgear Goes Ahead With Draft 802.11n -07/03/2006 NEW NORTEL ENTERPRISE WLAN RANGE -19/02/2006 802.11N TO REACH 600 MBPS -08/02/2006 IMPROVE YOUR WI-FI SIGNAL -24/01/2006 802.11n SAGA CONTINUES -10/10/2005 Tag This Now: