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802.11n Should Be Finalized By September
adeelarshad82 writes "It's probable that the 802.11n standard will finally be approved at a scheduled IEEE meeting this September, ending a contentious round of infighting that has delayed the standard for years. For the 802.11n standard, progress has been agonizingly slow, dating back almost five years to 2004, when 802.11g held sway. It struggled throughout 2005 and 2006, when members supposedly settled on the TGnSync standard, then formed the Enhanced Wireless Consortium in 2006 to speed the process along. A draft version of 802.11n was approved in January 2006, prompting the first wave of routers based on the so-called draft-n standard shortly thereafter."
Will the final version be (backwards?) compatible with Draft-N routers and wireless cards?
call me FOSS im the boss with the sauce and the source
However, 802.11n has a much larger range than 802.11g. So while you might not use all the speed, the fact that you can get a much better connection everywhere in your house makes it a better standard.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Seriously. I don't remember how long it took but it always seemed like a/b/g came along fairly quickly. Then n was rumored for a while, then it was finally "drafted" and I got all excited and figured it was only 6 months or a year from being final.... not so much. Here we are 3 and a half years later and I still haven't bothered to buy something based on n because I've been burned too many times by things that don't quite meet the official spec.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Since 2004.
Trouble is, with something like Wifi, where much of the value lies in ubiquity and interoperability, there really isn't a "forward" to move toward without a standard(official, informal consensus, or de-facto standard + clones).
Try streaming HD video, especially when there is some distance between you and your access point. Then you will understand why N is long overdue.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Oh goody. Now I can get dropped connections from twice the distance!
now i can finally use the technology that i've been using for the past 3 years!
802.11n SHOULD HAVE BEEN finalized over a year ago.
Jeez did someone get a little trigger happy with the troll mod in this thread?
I know Buffalo Tech has discontinued the infiniti N router of mine.
There's some DLink Draft-N wireless cards that don't - and apparently won't ever - have XP SP3 compatible drivers.
Unless you use 802.11n at 5GHz, which is really necessary to see most of the speed benefits anyway. At 5GHz the range is pretty terrible.
I get 2 bars on my iPhone from my Linksys WRT 610N from about 20 feet away through two thin walls (in the bathroom of my one bedroom apartment). The upside is that that particular router has 2 radios, so it can run on 2.4GHz simultaneously, allowing me to access it from outside where the 5GHz doesn't reach.
Now maybe some networking companies can start releasing wireless N products.
On another note, imagine how much the nerd herd is going to have to work to sell a netowrk product now.
Chuck: "OK, you can get this router which is a draft N, but this new N product will do everything the draft N product does for 20$ more"
Client: "All these letters confuse me and make me belligerent. Can't we only use one letter? "
Chuck: "Ok, howabout N?"
Client: "Why not something simpler, like A, A is the best you know."
Chuck: "Just give me 150$ for the router a 75$ for an extended warranty."
Client: "Here you go, I am easily parted from my money."
to Wyfy
Perhaps I'm missing something, but don't iPhones only support B/G wireless networks? That would mean you would be only getting the G signal...
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
once again steering the fail-boat that engineering is driving, until she wraps around a phone pole, hits a standard, and kills a company or two.
"draft" N is exactly why i make sure marketing does not get to see developer mailing lists and content at my slave site. why in the holy hell SHOULD the production standard be compatible, or even remotely similar to, its draft??
Good people go to bed earlier.
IPv6 will be adopted by the masses?
I get 2 bars on my iPhone ... (in the bathroom of my one bedroom apartment).
Note to self: Never buy hax0r_this's used iPhone. (It's been "flagged").
I have a copy of one of the draft PCI specifications. In big bold letters it tells the reader to "NOT DESIGN PRODUCTS BASED ON THIS DRAFT STANDARD." Because the very definition of "draft" means that it's not complete and it's likely that the final specification will deviate from the draft in some ways.
I suppose the standards folks have no real way of enforcing that edict (an aside: the USB Implementers group are particularly toothless), but still -- anyone who buys a product based on a draft spec should not be surprised when it doesn't work with products built to the released spec.