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802.11n Spec Still In The Air
Vitaly Friedman writes "Standards for the hotly anticipated Wi-Fi successor haven't yet been agreed upon. Where's that leave all those early-bird products? 802.11n is a highly anticipated successor to today's Wi-Fi, promising a huge performance boost. The draft spec promises to deliver data rates up to 180 Mbps, which could make wired home networks unnecessary and should allow high-definition wireless video streaming. At issue is whether the draft spec is far enough along that companies can make products that will provide that performance but still be compatible with each other and with older Wi-Fi equipment."
I don't care what they settle on. If I can get 180mbps from one part of my house to the other, without pesky wires - I want it sooner rather than later.
uhh.. isn't the reason why we can use wifi in most countries because the 2.4Ghz is unregulated?
have you tried changing your wireless to a different channel? i find that helps, and is less of a hassle than being harassed by the FCC (or insert_local_regulatory_body from your country that does the same thing).
It really doesn't matter how far the spec is, as long as the basics are there, they can do a firmware update to bring the products in line once the final spec is released. This has happened all over the place.
That's what having firmware updates is for.
It's like how it was with LattisNet, then 10BaseT.
Or 802.11g. Everyone's bucking for market share, to be the first ones on the block, to entice you with speed.
-Compatibility? Who knows.
-Backwards compatibility with 802.11b/g? Who knows.
-Data rates that are what was advertised? Early tests say no way, not even close by b/g standards.
-Firmware all nicely baked? Nope.
-Non-CardBus capability? Dream on.
-Low-power chipsets? Nightmare on.
-Test regimens? No.
-Test equipment? No.
-New cellular distribution capabilities? Who knows? It's not a standard yet.
-Requirement that it has even a modicum of internal security like WPA2? Ho ho ho....
-Any open source motherboards? You wish.
-Resplendent ubiquitous deployments? Not for years.
-Faster than b/g and EV-DO (not EV-DOa)? Probably.
Weren't we here about four years ago? Didn't anyone learn any lessons? Ok, it's about early marketshare. It can't be about anything else.
Curse of Lomo? No, Curse of MIMO.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The draft spec promises to deliver data rates up to 180 Mbps, which could make wired home networks unnecessary
So untrue. I have the fortune of running my wired lan at gigabit speeds which is very nice and skip free while streaming and still being able to use the network for other high bandwidth operations at the same time. Not to mention the problems that will continue to haunt wireless for some time.
"What problems?" you might ask. Well, let us start with security. While the methods and keys used to lock wireless networks continue to grow stronger, it is still easier to get onto a wireless network then it is to sneak into someone's apartment and plug into their network like you would have to do with a physical connection. There is also the interference concern. In areas of high population density, especially apartment communities, you have to start worrying about interference from nearby networks. The larger these communities are, the fewer separation between channels available to avoid the interference problems. You can also get interference from other devices on the same frequency. I have heard of varying degrees of problems with 2.8 GHz phones and wireless B/G networks.
I do not think we are going to see an end to wired networks just yet.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
#1 in my book, which you seem to have forgotten: RELIABILITY! I won't be getting rid of my cat 5 cables any time soon for this reason alone.
I regularly transmit raw audio files upwards of 100 MB between my Windows machine and my iBook. Over wireless, we're talking several minutes to transmit. Over wired: a few seconds. Sure would be nice if I could transmit those files wirelessly in a short amount of time.
The point I'm getting at is that home networks are not always just about sharing the Internet connection. For sharing large files between local computers, 802.11g is just a pain.
Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016