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

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 09 September 2009 03:28

Business IT - Technology

According to Gast, the transition from IEEE study groups to task groups indicates that the industry has determined that gigabit wireless is feasible and that work can proceed on defining the specifications.

Two separate groups are working on standards for frequencies below 6GHz (802.11ac) and at around 60GHz (802.11ad).

The higher frequencies will require more power (roughly 100 times as much), but have the advantage of being less cluttered, which is important for unlicensed bands.

Based on the experience with 802.11n, the first gigabit wireless products based on 802.11ac and 802.11ad will probably appear in two to three years.

He expects a similar process to the one we saw with 802.11n, where the Wi-Fi Alliance set up an interoperability program based on the second draft of the standard, allowing people to mix and match hardware from different vendors before 802.11n was finalised.

"But we haven't built hardware that does everything in 802.11n yet," Gast told iTWire. "We still have to get to 600 megabits products with 11n."

If wireless networking can be made as fast and as reliable as wired, why would anyone use wired for user-facing connections, he asks.