The wireless industry is continuing its split between companies that are moving to market with draft 802.11n wireless LAN technology now and those that are choosing to hold off on “pre-n” chips until the specification gets closer to final standard.

Moving ahead of the curve is a strategy that has proved well at WLAN kingpin Broadcom in the past. The company flew out of the gate with draft 802.11g, the technology predecessor to 802.11n, and by the time the standard was set in stone Broadcom had secured a sizable chunk of the market. The company, along with others in the wireless space, is taking that same approach to 802.11n wireless.

Meanwhile on the flip side, several wireless players are adamantly coming out against pre-n products, saying the technology, which moved to Draft 1.0 in March by an 80 percent majority IEEE vote, still has too many issues to be resolved to be considered compliant with final 802.11n.

“We really feel pretty strongly about that,” said Dave Borison, director of marketing for Airgo Networks, the company often credited with creating MIMO (multiple input, multiple output), the technology at the core of 802.11n. “Where we are with the standard, we just don’t think it’s right to be calling products pre-n or Draft 1.0 compliant.”

Borison noted 802.11g’s process and the overall lengthy voting process that the IEEE rightfully employs.

“Our expectation is that there will be hundreds if not thousands of comments on the first draft. With 802.11g, at the first draft stage, there were thousands of comments and it changed significantly. It wasn’t until 5.10 that the draft was stable enough to guarantee 11g compliance,” he commented, adding that 802.11g reached final standard at Draft 6.1.

On Tuesday 802.11n began to travel down a similar path when only 46.6 percent of the specification’s working group members voted in favor of moving the draft to the next step in the IEEE process.

The just completed vote concerned whether to forward the 1.0 draft to sponsor ballot, signifying that the 802.11 working group considered the 11n standard to be finalized. The commenting and balloting process began on March 19, and closed 40 days later on April 29. During the letter ballot process, members are able to provide commentary on the draft ranging from minor editorial points to proposed technical changes.   
 
According to Airgo, the most significant changes required are to improve interoperability with legacy devices. The company expects that by the end of this year there will be around 80 million installed 802.11b/g networks “and these need better protection than Draft 1.0 can offer,” Airgo said.

"This is exactly what the standards process is for – to identify flaws and ensure they are addressed for the best interests of the consumer," said Greg Raleigh, CEO of Airgo. "While we are extremely keen to see a fully ratified standard as soon as possible, we believe performance, ease of use and interoperability are absolutely critical and the standard must support these requirements. [The] outcome proves that Draft 1.0 was not as stable as some in the industry would have us believe. It calls into question the validity of so-called 'draft n' products.”

802.11n missing this mark was expected, however. Noted wireless company and Airgo competitor Atheros, in the history of all 802.11 standards it is extremely rare for a first draft to succeed in its first letter ballot.

"The 1.0 draft specification is still the one and only working draft," said Bill McFarland, CTO of Atheros. "Any changes to the draft must receive 75 percent approval in order to be included in the draft. The bar for the final 802.11n standard is set very high and we will go through several more ballots. A 'No' vote at this stage does not indicate that there will be radical changes to the standard."

Neither Atheros nor Airgo believe that the vote will push off a final standard and say a ratified 802.11n standard is still on track for mid-2007.

By: DocMemory
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