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IEEE Developments in Wireless Networking
JamesAlfaro writes "After much wrangling between opposing interests among the members of the IEEE, a first draft for the Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11n specification received approval in a Thursday meeting. Final ratification of the standard is not expected until next year." Relatedly, judgecorp writes "The IEEE has disbanded its working group on ultrawideband. They are leaving the marketplace to decide between two competing approaches." From the article: "Freescale, first to the market with UWB products, believes its headstart will give it a long-term victory, while WiMedia, with the backing of industry heavyweights including Intel and Microsoft, reckons its punch will eventually win through, even without a formal IEEE standard."
However, I have read some articles that are saying the hardware in pre-n equipment may not even be compatible with pre-n. If the hardware won't work with it then a firmware update won't help.
The practical problems with ultra-wideband are huge. This is probably a technology that should be approached incrementally rather than all at once.
We've played with an ultra-wideband RF link in the lab. It's not pretty. Between the top of the band and the bottom of the band, the propagation changes a lot. Ditto for the noise profile. We used discone antennas (because they are inherently wideband) but those aren't practical for mobile use.
We were successful in the lab for low data rates but, of course, that isn't the real world.
They'd better allow for a free tradein/swap if their pre-n routers aren't compatible with the final spec.
Like they have so many times in the past, yes?
</sarcasm>
Throughput is not the only requirements for VOIP.
From the article:The article also mentions power management improvements (for devices running on batteries - like cell phones), longer range and better collision management.
Together, these would make a significant difference to VOIP - even if Mbps were lower.
My pics.
http://www.thechannelinsider.com/article2/0,1895,1 754056,00.asp
Towards the end of the article:
Making matters even more problematic is that, unlike 802.11g, where many early devices could be upgraded to the real standard with a firmware upgrade, that's less likely to be the case with the pre-N MIMO devices, depending on who wins the standard war.
Current wifi is sufficient for a single user on a single AP. However, with the current environment there is no provision for QoS in the shared media environment. VoIP requires consistent data delivery for a good user experience which is provided through QoS. It's not purely a matter of bandwidth.
UWB Standards Group Calls It Quits "
Unable to resolve a deadlock between two competing proposals, the IEEE working group responsible for the ultrawideband technology threw in the towel Thursday.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.3a task group (TG3a), which oversaw the formation of the UWB standard agreed to withdraw the Jan. 2003 project authorization request that formed the group. Instead, the two competing technologies - MB-OFDM, championed by the Intel-led WiMedia Forum, and DS-UWB, promoted by Freescale Semiconductor and its UWB Forum - will be left to fight it out in the marketplace.
I think a lot of customers will be disspaointed when they discover this, perhaps having bought this equipment under false pretenses.
No you don't. No one gets 54Mbps throughput on 802.11a/b/g wireless. That may be the advertized rate, but it's not your typical or even maximum bandwidth.
Still, you are correct that even 802.11b at low speeds is good enought for VoIP as far as throughput. It's more SNR and the (lack of real) QoS that are the problems areas.