Wireless Networking Speeds of 540 Mbps w/ 802.11n

GuitarNeophyte writes "The Register reports three of the major players in forming the 802.11n standard have agreed to join forces in order to bring the new protocol into reality. Speculation states that the speeds using the new standard could be in the 540Mbps area! "Rather than see the 802.11n standards-setting process become deadlocked, as has happened in other cases, most notably ultrawideband, TGn Sync and WWiSE have clearly realized it makes more sense to work together than against each other.""

Comments

Muahahahaha

[donleyp]

Now, I will be able to hijack my neighbor's high speed connection ten times as fast!

Re:Muahahahaha

[hexalite]

I plan to ping flood my whole neighbourhood offline, those wireless B modems won't stand a chance!

No, that's wrong.

[Khakionion]

If Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD has taught us anything, it's obviously better to have an overzealous, point-missing war over two completely incompatible formats.

n?

[should_be_linear]

How does this "n" letter compares to WiMAX?

Re:n?

[Khakionion]

WiMax is 802.16. It's not intended for single household use, like 802.11.

In the past...

[MaestroSartori]

...three apartments I've lived in, we've struggled to get over 20Mbps with 100Mbps-rated gear. Does this mean we'll actually get 100Mbps from this, or will they somehow be able to avoid whatever's causing current-gen wireless gear to degrade when going through anything thicker than a fibreboard partition? :(

Re:In the past...

[DigiShaman]

Because you live in an appartment, it's very common to see quite a few wireless routers online around you. For example, I can detect at least eight. As such, you will have a very high SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio). The best thing you can do at this point is to set your router to a different channel.

Channels go from 1 through 11. The only channels that do not overlap are 1, 6, and 11. Basically, pick any one of the channels farthest away possible near you for the best signal.

Re:In the past...

[thue]

you will have a very high SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)

That should be low SNR I think.

Re:In the past...

[__aaijsn7246]

From wikipedia:

Channels and international compatibility

802.11b and 802.11g divide the spectrum into 14 overlapping, staggered channels whose center frequencies are 5 megahertz (MHz) apart. It is common to hear that channels 1, 6 and 11 (and, if available in the regulatory domain, channel 14) do not overlap and those channels (or other sets with similar gaps) can be used such that multiple networks can operate in close proximity without interfering with each other, but this statement is somewhat over-simplified. The 802.11b and 802.11g standards do not specify the width of a channel. Rather, they specify the center frequency of the channel and a spectral mask for that channel. The spectral mask for 802.11b requires that the signal be at least 30 dB down from its peak energy at ±11 MHz from the center frequency and at least 50 dB down from its peak energy at ±22 MHz from the center frequency.

Since the spectral mask only defines power output restrictions up to ±22 MHz from the center frequency, some people assume that the channel's energy doesn't extend any further than that, but in reality, it does. In fact, if the transmitter is sufficiently powerful, the signal can be quite strong even beyond the ±22 MHz point. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that channels 1, 6, and 11 do not overlap. It is more correct to say that, given the separation between channels 1, 6, and 11, the signal on any channel should be sufficiently attenuated to minimally interfere with a transmitter on any other channel. But this is not universally true. For example, a powerful transmitter on channel 1 can easily overwhelm a weaker transmitter on e.g. channel 6. In one lab test, throughput on a file transfer on channel 11 decreased slightly when a similar transfer began on channel 1, indicating that even channels 1 and 11 can interfere with each other a little bit.

Although the statement that channels 1, 6, and 11 are "non-overlapping" is incomplete, the 1, 6, 11 guideline has merit. If transmitters are closer together than channels 1, 6, and 11 (e.g. 1, 4, 7, and 10), overlap between the channels will probably cause unacceptable degradation of signal quality and throughput.

Distance!

[PhYrE2k2]

I'd rather have distance over speed... like the article a couple days about about 125mi WiFi. Has a lot more purpose, as anything important and needing the speed isn't going to be going over Wireless.

-M

Network Burn

[Doc Ruby]

We know that some EM radiation does cause cancer and other health problems. Which bands and frequencies, targeted for use by telecom (licensed or not), actually are hazardous? And how long before they're used by telecom providers struggling to deploy bandwidth?

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[Taevin]

Maybe I'm just not thinking enough about this, but why would faster speeds be any more dangerous than existing wireless technology?

Better information:

[dostick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#802.11n

Re:Why isn't there 540Mbs Ethernet ?

[TripMaster Monkey]

Actually, 10-gigabit ethernet has been ratified since 2002.

Re:what will the long term health risks be

[hab136]

Well there are more questions that can be asked. If mobile phone can cause health problems "possibly". and high power microwave is known to cause problems. Then why would there be no issues with current technology letalone higher speed specifications.

Yes, high power microwaves cause this health problem called "cooking".

Low power gear like cell phones WiFi haven't been shown to cause problems.

For the people that think "OMG the radiation!" think of it this way - you have no problems with a 1 degree change in temperature. You'd have a big problem with a 100 degree in temperature. Likewise, some radiation is ok (and most gear puts out *less* than the Earth naturally radiates!). A lot will cause you problems.

Re:What happened to H I J K L & M?

[majest!k]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11 :

IEEE 802.11 - The original 1 Mbit/s and 2 Mbit/s, 2.4 GHz RF and IR standard
IEEE 802.11a - 54 Mbit/s, 5 GHz standard (1999, shipping products in 2001)
IEEE 802.11b - Enhancements to 802.11 to support 5.5 and 11 Mbit/s (1999)
IEEE 802.11d - International (country-to-country) roaming extensions
IEEE 802.11e - Enhancements: QoS, including packet bursting
IEEE 802.11F - Inter-Access Point Protocol (IAPP)
IEEE 802.11g - 54 Mbit/s, 2.4 GHz standard (backwards compatible with b) (2003)
IEEE 802.11h - 5 GHz spectrum, Dynamic Channel/Frequency Selection (DCS/DFS) and Transmit Power Control (TPC) for European compatibility
IEEE 802.11i (ratified 24 June 2004) - Enhanced security
IEEE 802.11j - Extensions for Japan
IEEE 802.11k - Radio resource measurement enhancements
IEEE 802.11n - Higher throughput improvements
IEEE 802.11p - WAVE - Wireless Access for the Vehicular Environment (such as ambulances and passenger cars)
IEEE 802.11r - Fast roaming
IEEE 802.11s - Wireless mesh networking
IEEE 802.11T - Wireless Performance Prediction (WPP) - test methods and metrics
IEEE 802.11u - Interworking with non-802 networks (e.g., cellular)
IEEE 802.11v - Wireless network management
IEEE 802.11w - Protected Management Frames

Note that 802.11x is not a standard or task group. Rather, it is a colloquial term used to denote any current or future 802.11 standard, in cases where further precision is not necessary.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it.

[Guspaz]

And don't forget there is a world of difference between advertised speed and actual speed.

If the pattern holds true to the same as 802.11g, we will see 200mbit at close range, and 100mbit at normal range.

In other words they will claim 540mbit but we'll get 100mbit wired performance.

The problem is that even 540mbit is not enough because a wireless network is like a hub, not a switch. All bandwidth is shared, and it is half duplex; only one person can send at a time on the entire wireless network. 540mbit sounds amazing, but even at the 200mbit you get at close range, if you have ten people on the network, each can only get 20mbit if they all transfer at the same time. I imagine collisions would further reduce that. And cut some more off for upstream usage.