Cisco Announces 802.11n Products After All

Kurtz'sKompund writes to mention that by announcing new 802.11n-compliant products Cisco has reversed their previous claims that the 802.11n standard was not ready for business use. "The Aironet 1250 access point can be used on its own, or as a thin access point connecting to Cisco's wireless switches - an approach that appears to duck the architectural issues which have split other Wi-Fi players. The AP, due next month, is capable of a theoretical rate of 300 Mbit/s (actual throughput probably around 100 Mbit/s) compared with todays 802.11g access points, and will cost $1299."

Comments

More than just 802.11n with the 1250

[York the Mysterious]

There's a lot new in the 1250. A lot more than 802.11n. First off because it's 802.11n you're getting MIMO which is going to benefit your existing B and G users. You're also getting a gig uplink port, which you're going to need now. You also get modular wifi cards. That last one is the important part. My university just deployed about 100 access points, and to replace them now we have to go swap the entire units. It would be a lot simpler and cheaper to just swap the radios. Beyond just saving money not having to replace the entire unit you save no having to pay someone to take the time to swap the entire unit our including the mounting hardware and then reconfigure the unit. If Cisco follows through and uses the 1250 as a real platform similar to the catalyst line, then customers have a lot to gain.

It's a DRAFT standard ...

[Bassman59]

...which means it's NOT a standard at all.

And draft standards have large-type caveats on their first pages: DO NOT DESIGN PRODUCTS TO THIS DRAFT STANDARD.

The implication, of course, is that the final released standard most likely will deviate from draft standards in some manner. Some deviances might be fixable via a simple firmware update. Other deviances may require ASIC respins ($$$$) or PCB spins due to form-factor changes.

Yet the various network-products manufacturers got themselves into a bind: in order to make their products seem faster than the next guy, someone jumped the gun and released a product based on a draft standard. Of course, since that industry is made up of sheep, the others followed in short order, releasing products also based on a draft. And guess what? The stuff from Vendor A doesn't play well, if at all, with the stuff from Vendor B.

There's a reason why various vendors' so-called 802.11N products have serious interoperability issues: there's no standard yet!

This particular standard is quite complex (see the article in EDN magazine) and it seems like every vendor implements different features in their own way. Of course each vendor wants their particular features to be part of the standard, and that's one reason why the standard has been delayed. The industry can't stand the delay; after all, 802.11g products are dead since 802.11n became "imminent," and if they can't sell anything, they have problems. So they sell products that are not ready for prime time, promising firmware upgrades if/when the standard is actually ratified. It'll be interesting to see how that all shakes out.

In that same issue of EDN, an editorial makes clear that basically consumers should just wait for the standard. Gimme gigabit Ethernet on a wire any day.

Certified Draft N

[eggboard]

The comment on this linked article isn't on the mark. Cisco is specifically releasing a device that's got firmware based on Draft 2.0 from Task Group N, which has been certified as an interim release by the Wi-Fi Alliance. What all that means is that Cisco and other firms had to go through lab-based (not just plugfest-based) interoperability and conformance testing to get the Draft N Wi-Fi label. That's the baseline for the next year to 18 months for what 802.11n will look like. That's a far cry from Cisco just denigrating 802.11n's current state; they certainly didn't think it was ready several months ago (and it wasn't).