Intel To Include Draft 802.11n In Centrino

filenavigator writes "Intel announced at the Globalcom 2006 Expo that they will be including Draft 802.11n hardware in their Centrino chips. It will be interesting since they said that they will start doing this sometime in the middle of 2007, and the 802.11n standard is not to be finalized until 2008. Additionally Draft 802.11n has been dogged by interoperability problems." From the article: "Although the news caused barely a ripple of reaction in the audience of software and hardware engineers, there are industry analysts who have already warned large buyers of wireless technology to resist the temptation to deploy high-speed IEEE 802.11n devices until the standard is ratified."

Comments

Re:Can someone explain this?

[b0s0z0ku]

So unless these new chips will have more power than is currently allowed, how can they have a greater range?

Better error correction or use of a transmission method that's more robust when faced with a low signal/noise ratio, possibly. With a directional mic and possibly some filtering software, you may be able to hear shouting five miles away, for example.

-b.

Re:Why so long to finalize the standard?

[ArchAbaddon]

"Pre-N" was just a fancy marketing ploy be Belkin; their "Pre-N" products was made well before even Draft 1 was released. It is proprietary, and when the 802.11n draft is standardized, will probably not be upgradeable to the standard, and will only be backwards compatible to 802.11g with other wireless devices.