802.11n set for final approval, but the story's not over

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 03:28

Business IT - Technology

Although the 802.11n standard should receive final approval this Friday, there's more to come in wireless networking.

802.11n has brought wired-equivalent speeds to wireless networking, but the industry won't be resting on its laurels when the standard receives final approval later this week.

"Power saving is a big chunk of that [the industry] is working on," according to Matthew Gast, chief strategist at Trapeze Networks and chair of the Wi-Fi Alliance's Wireless Network Management and Security Technical task groups.

Part of the problem is 802.11n's design calls for between two and four radio chains (antenna, amplifier, receiver, transmitter, etc) in each device, and each of them consumes power.

The 802.11v wireless network management standard will help reduce the amount of power required, Gast told iTWire, as well as providing a location specification that can be used to improve security and to provide a foundation for new services, along with a timing specification that will provide precise synchronisation for audio and video data, or between both channels of a stereo audio stream.

The location features will "restore the walls of the building," he said. Existing equipment relies on access controls (network credentials, MAC addresses, etc) to stop people connecting from the car park.

In broad terms, 802.11v will allow access points to measure the signal loss between themselves and a connected device, which can be interpreted as a measure of the number of walls between them. Combining the information from multiple access points allows a form of triangulation to determine where the device is located.

How can that information be used? Please read on.