IEEE finally approves 802.11n
In your own time, guys
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The latest version of Wi-Fi, 802.11n, received formal certification on Friday, despite the fact that more than 700 products have already been certified as compatible by the Wi-Fi Alliance.
Never let it be said that the IEEE hurries things: more than two years after the first 802.11n products (conforming to an early draft of the standard) came out the standards body has finally ratified the specification - which should give confidence to enterprises looking at the technology even if everyone is already using it at home.
In addition to the early draft-compliant devices we have Wi-Fi-Alliance-certified devices that conform to a later draft and are allowed to carry the "Wi-Fi" logo. The Alliance reckons it's certified more than 700 devices, all of which should (thankfully) be seamlessly compatible with devices conforming to the final specification.
This compatibility is achieved thanks to the last details of the specification all being options in the draft, so draft devices should connect seamless with their properly-compliant siblings.
But Enterprises have been reluctant to deploy 802.11n until the standard was formally approved: only 15 per cent of the devices approved under the draft version are aimed at enterprise users, compared to 30 per cent which were home-networking products - the rest being laptop computers (45 per cent) and other bits of consumer electronics.
IEEE approval will mean 802.11n appearing in more offices, but the length of time it's taken to get the standard approved reflects badly on the IEEE and its ability to react with a speed commensurate with the rest of the industry. ®
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COMMENTS
@Disco whatever...
...wow get your tin foil hat on baby...
"They put their own engineers in the working group to delay ratification."
Telecoms engineers have been on IEEE boards and expert groups since day 1. Of course they have vested interests in radio technology, they don't want it to completely f**k up the phone network.
If anything, it will be the telco's that actually deploy large scale mesh networks, having acess points and infrastructure to do so, but at the moment, the see little commercial benefit in it.
@Chris C
I suspect a lot of manufacturers sold draft-N kit was because the standard was taking so long to get ratified.
Sure, there will always be bleeding-edge companies & customers who will go for early draft stuff. But the bulk of the industry, I think, started shipping draft-N stuff because they could see the standard was a long way away, and competitors were starting to gain traction with their early kit.
"even if everyone is already using it at home"
Actually I've never bothered chasing N-spec devices. 'G does the job for me, so why pay the extra for the increased speed and ability to soak up the neighbours' bandwidth??!
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