New Wi-Fi standard back on track

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their gear would at least be compatible with chips developed by market leaders Intel and Broadcom.

But November came and went, and no proposal was agreed upon. Behind the scenes, it became evident that device makers, even those within the EWC, still wanted the IEEE stamp of approval.

As a result, Intel and the others began working more closely with the joint proposal team, Raleigh said. This week, the two sides are expected to finalize details of the joint proposal draft that will be presented to the task group next week. Intel has confirmed that it has been working closely with the joint proposal team, as it had said it would when the EWC was formed.

"The fragmentation that was happening wouldn't have been good for the market."

--Mike Pellon, vice president of standards, Motorola

"The EWC has been in discussions with the joint proposal group to harmonize all the different technical points," said Amy Martin, a spokeswoman for Intel. "There has been a lot of negotiating back and forth to find a solution that fits all parties."

Device manufacturers such as Motorola say it's important that the standards work has remained within the IEEE framework.

"The fragmentation that was happening wouldn't have been good for the market," Pellon said. "A lot of the success of Wi-Fi is because different suppliers can make products that work together, so that when you go to an airport or a hotel that has Wi-Fi, you don't have to worry if your wireless card is compatible. It just works."

One of the key areas of contention between the EWC and the joint proposal team had to do with specifications for mobile devices. Several mobile-handset manufacturers, including Nokia and Motorola, did not initially join the Intel group because they believed that its specification was too PC-centric.

The higher transmission speeds that should result from 802.11n are supposed to help equipment makers support more multimedia applications, like voice and video, over Wi-Fi. Streaming content requires faster speeds, which 802.11n promises to deliver.

But handset makers wanted to make sure that these multimedia applications also worked on their mobile devices, which have strict size and power constraints. The initial EWC specifications did not take these issues into account, Raleigh said. But after a lot of work between the two groups, the proposal that will be presented to the task group next week will support low power and specifications for small screens.

"A lot of horse trading went on," he said. "We're pleased to see the progress that has been made, and we are thrilled to see the standard back on track in an open forum."

[chuchucuhi]

ahhhh

I love the process of developing a standard in any industry, it's always so exciting. Heh, well I hope they move their ***** because 2006 looks to be about moving video content home or otherwise, so they better get the act togeter because this has been taking waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long.

[David Arbogast]

Time to Raise Taxes

Perfect example of why governments shouldn't build and own citywide WiFi... it would be time for a special tax assessment to upgrade the infrastructure. Awwww... your city still runs 802.11b. Better pony up more tax dollars!

[Slylencer]

Of course

Because we *have* to raise taxes anytime anything has to be upgraded in the government, right? Say, I can't remember that they raised taxes when the upgraded the water tower. Hmmmm..

Such sound logic. You should be a lawyer.

[Stating]

Even Worse

If taxes, or fees as Schwarzenegger calls them, were raised to upgrade city WiFI equipment then you can be sure that some or all of the increase would end up going to other, completely unrelated and useless programs. Think your state's gas tax money all goes to fix roads? Nope? It goes for dubious social programs like Esperanto As A Second Language.

[markdoiron]

802.11g Is Long in the Tooth

when i first upgrade my home wifi to g i experienced an immediate upgrade in broadband on the wireless side from 700-800-kbps to well over 2-mbps. of course i was running one of the proprietary spin-offs that uses all the channels (in my case, d-link). well, couple months ago a nearby neighbor installed a wifi network (there were three others before, but all were weak, he's very, very strong) and my data rate dropped back to 700-800-kbps, even after i switched from channel 6 (mandated in the proprietary mode) to channel 11. all my nearby neighbors deny it's them (i'm trying to find him to tell him to turn off his proprietary jammer!), so i hope that mimo comes quickly and takes care of things!

mark d.