Ovum blasts IEEE over 802.11n draft certification

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 23 May 2007 06:48

Business IT - Technology

Last week the WiFi Alliance announced plans to certify IEEE802.11n Draft 2.0 products, but market research company, Ovum, has questioned the move saying that, the IEEE is caving in to pressure from vendors.

The Alliance said at the time that it would provide future certification for the eventual 802.11n final specification. However, this is not due to be ratified until March 2009.

According to Ovum senior analyst, Mark Main, "In Ovum's view the IEEE is now giving in to the commercial interests from the vendor community that has been pushing draft products for quite some time. This is bad for the credibility of the IEEE. If the WiFi alliance is so confident then we see few reasons why the final ratified specifications of 802.11n should differ from certified Draft 2.0. But the lengthened timescale to full 'N' revision suggests there will be differences."

He noted that "leading service providers are largely staying away from draft 'N' products for mass market wireless offerings and are sticking with 'B/G'. Consumers might be best advised to do the same."

The 'N' revision to the IEEE's 802.11 wireless LAN standard has been a long time coming and has already been through two draft versions, which have been implemented in all manner of products by Vendors attempting to grab market share.

Main says that, while current Draft-N products well be upgradeable to the final 'N' revision "this could well mean the user having to tinker around in future with firmware updates in the event of problems when truly 'N' certified products arrive. That is absolutely not the sort of task that the mass market user can reasonably be expected to undertake."

Main suggests that vendors' rush to market with 'N" products may in part be driven by a desire to get older 'G' products out of the environment. "'N' is supposed to provide greater range and much higher speeds through the use of both MIMO antenna technology and channel bonding. But to remain backwards compatible and neighbour friendly with today's hugely popular 802.11g equipment, the new products have to detect other stations and back off from using their single channels.

"The legacy of 'G' may sterilise the effectiveness of 'N' in some cases," Main said. "By getting the market to move quickly on from 'G' now, the industry might be trying to cap a problem that may plague the future of 'N' products...'G' products [could] become the unloved child of the WiFi industry."