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802.11n: High Throughput, Not Just Fast Wireless

Posted by timothy on from the no-wires-good dept.

eggboard writes "Unstrung reveals that the 802.11 working group is spawning 802.11n, a high-throughput task group to work on increasing the actual data:symbol ratio in wireless networks while also boosting speed to 108 Mbps to 320 Mbps. Most people who use 802.11a, b, or g know that actual net throughput, or the real data that's carried, is a fraction of the cited rate: maybe 7 Mbps in the 11 Mbps 802.11b flavor and 25 Mbps in the 54 Mbps a and g flavors. The goal of 802.11n is to increase speed, sure, but also to increase the percentage of symbols that don't bear overhead. The bad news: they predict 2005 or 2006 for completion."

6 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. recipe for high speed by eenglish_ca · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you want highspeed wireless networking just buy some of the at&t microwave bunkers. As a bonus you can have huge w/lan parties and microwave your food free of charge at the same time.

    --
    Checking out my form of escapism.
  2. Not being used... by InnovativeCX · · Score: 2, Funny

    Favorite quote from the article:

    802.11 Specification letter suffix: O
    What it does: Not being used, because it looks confusing.

    In all seriousness, this would be an incredibly useful technology--802.11b at it's current real speed is quite unusable for transferring files of significant size. However, I have to admit that I'm tired of seeing a Baskin-Robbins offering of wireless flavors...802.11g is a noble effort at standardization, but backwards-compatible technology is a must. I can't afford to have twenty 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11-whatever cards sticking out the side of my notebook/PDA/random useless all-in-one wireless device of the week.

    1. Re:Not being used... by deadsaijinx* · · Score: 3, Funny

      hmmm... b then a then g then n ... engineers don't beleive in the alphabet. "[the alphabet] is just a suggestion, Marge. Like pants" - homer
      yes, I know that the quote actually talks about roads, so lets just call this the information super HIGHWAY and get on with our lives ^^

      (if the above is incoherent, you haven't spent enuf time on slashdot)

      --
      YOU SUCK BALLS!
  3. Uhmm? by aspjunkie · · Score: 5, Funny

    Have they taken into consideration that they might run out of letters at some point? ..especially if we skip from g to n.. there's some cool letters in there...

  4. This is the story of 802.11 by worst_name_ever · · Score: 3, Funny
    I think it's kind of funny they're calling it 802.11n.

    They might as well just give up and start saying "Oh, you don't want 802.11[n] anymore - you should throw away all your hardware and get 802.11[n+1] instead, since it'll be so much better! No, really!"

    --

    In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
  5. Re:they should use hexadecimal . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Hmm, well their protocol name is clearly hexadecimal: 802.11a = 8*256 + 2 + 1/16 + 1/256 + 10/4096 = 2050.068848