802.11n: High Throughput, Not Just Fast Wireless

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."

Comments

Progress...

[sgtsanity]

I think you're a bit confused about how the ways are going. At any given time, they're developing several different specs for wireless communication. Some of these, such as the publicized 802.11a, b, and g are hardware-side, meaning they have to deal with the way these things are actually transmitted. Others are more software-side, meaning they have to do with encrypting data and whatnot. Furthermore, all of these (except for a few earlier strange circumstances such as 802.11a) are backwards compatible.

In short, the hardware you buy today WILL be usable in a year or two. It just won't be the fastest, bestest thing on the market. Think of it as Moore's Law translated to wireless communication.

Re:60% throughput is normal

[IAR80]

Depends verry nuch on the environment. You'll get 60% in the countryside while 20% in crouded spectrum metropolitan area might be a good asumption.