Wireless

Finally, the Draft will now be taken off this logo.

As predicted last month, the IEEE has finally approved the 802.11n high-throughput wireless LAN standard.

Finalization of the new wireless networking standard--which is capable of delivering throughput speeds up to 300 megabits per second (and even higher)--took exactly seven years from the day it was conceived, or six years from the first draft version. The standard has been through a dozen or so draft versions.

News of the ratification broke via a blog post displaying an e-mail sent by Bruce Kraemer, longtime chairman of the 802.11n Task Group, to task group members. There has been no public announcement yet. Update 5:49 p.m. PDT: A press release has been issued.

(The 802.11n Task Group is part of the 802.11 Working Group, which oversees WLAN (wireless local-area network) standards. Task group members include the majority of Wi-Fi chipmakers, software developers, and equipment OEM vendors. Meru Networks, one of the members, posted the blog that broke the news.)

It's likely, however, that final approval of the standard will be publicly announced by September 15, the date when Meru Networks puts on a public Webcast to provide answers about the ratification.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, the group that tests and certifies wireless products to ensure their interoperability, all existing Wi-Fi Certified Draft N wireless products will still work with the final standard.

802.11n offers much higher speeds than the previous, already-ratified 802.11g, which caps at only 54Mbps. Due to the compelling higher speed, most wireless vendors haven been offering 802.11n-based (also known as Wireless-N) products during the past six years and calling them Draft N products. Now the Draft is no more.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, most, if not all, of the existing equipment can be upgraded to the final specification via a firmware update. Finally, all future wireless networking products will be compatible with today's products that have been Wi-Fi-certified.

The latest version of the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard is close to final ratification.

802.11n is much faster and of higher bandwidth than its predecessor, 802.11g. Last Friday, the 802.11 working group--a subset of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)--held its final approval vote on the standard, according to Trapeze Networks' Matthew Gast, a member of the working group.

Gast blogged Monday that the vote was passed overwhelmingly, after which the working group passed the standard on to the "higher layers" of the IEEE 802 wireless standards group for publication.

Those higher layers voted unanimously to approve the standard, and 802.11n has now gone to the IEEE Standards Board Review Committee for final approval on September 11.

"In an interesting twist, 11 September is a date relevant to the history of 802.11n," Gast wrote. "Bruce Kraemer, the longtime chair of Task Group N and the current chair of the 802.11 working group, noted that the first meeting of the 'High Throughput Study Group', the precursor to (Task Group N), was 11 September, 2002. If approved, the 802.11n effort will have taken exactly seven years, at least by one measure."

Delays over the final ratification of 802.11n led many manufacturers of Wi-Fi equipment and PCs to start implementing the specification in 2007, ahead of ratification, under the "Draft 2.0" moniker. As a result, the high-speed technology is already found in many devices today.

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Matthew Gast, a voting member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), suggested in his recent blog that the current Wireless-N (or 802.11n Draft) specification is going to be finalized in September.

The logo you should look for when buying wireless networking products.

If this is true, that would mean the specification took about seven years to become finalized from the day it was conceived.

So what does it mean for consumers? Apparently not much, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance, the group that tests and certifies wireless networking products to ensure their interoperability.

The group announced Thursday that it will not change the baseline requirements of its 802.11n certification program, and plans to make only small optional additions to address the finalization of the 802.11n standard. The updated test program will preserve interoperability with more than 600 Wi-Fi-certified 802.11n draft 2.0 products released since June 2007, while adding testing for some optional features now included in the final standard.

The optional features to be tested in the final standard include:

• Packet aggregation (A-MPDU), to make data transfers more efficient
• Space-time Block Coding (STBC), a multiple-antenna transmission technique to improve performance in some environments
• Channel coexistence measures for "good neighbor" behavior when using 40 MHz operation
• Testing for devices supporting three spatial streams

This means if you have bought yourself a Wi-Fi-certified wireless product--and you should only buy a wireless networking product that has been Wi-Fi-certified-- it will be working just fine once the spec has become final. Any new features of the final standard will likely be made available to that product via firmware.

For networking vendors, this is also good news. Because all Wi-Fi-certified draft 2.0 products meet the core requirements of--and interoperate with--the updated program, they will be eligible to use the approved 802.11n logo without retesting.

Though not yet finalized, 802.11n draft 2.0 products have been widely accepted across consumer and enterprise markets. According to ABI Research forecasts, among wireless networking standards, including 802.11b and 802.11g, shipments of Wireless-N (802.11n) products will reach 45 percent this year and grow to nearly 60 percent in 2012.

Broadcom on Monday announced a chip integrating 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and FM radio into a single silicon die, a move designed to expand the range of features available in mid-range mobile-phone handsets.

The introduction of the BCM4329 was motivated in part by the increased popularity of Wi-Fi in mid-range "feature phones," Broadcom said. It added that this growth is due in turn to the integration of cameras, browsers, and audio capabilities into more handsets, which is driving a need for transferring data and media between handsets and other electronics such as TVs, PCs, printers, remote speakers, and car stereos.

The chip is one of the first to offer the 802.11n Wi-Fi standard in a package suitable for mobile devices. It promises wireless throughput of up to 50Mbps, allowing large files to be transferred quickly, Broadcom said.

Broadcom's chip uses single-stream 802.11n, because the space, battery power and processing power restrictions in mobile devices would not support the multiple-antenna implementation used in larger 802.11n devices, according to the company. Even so, Broadcom said the single-stream design delivers faster and more reliable wireless connections than current 802.11g products.

The chip uses space-time block coding (STBC), a feature designed to improve connection robustness. It also has dual-band 802.11n capabilities, meaning handset owners can use the less-crowded 5GHz spectrum for applications that require faster guaranteed bandwidth.

In addition, the chip's FM transmit and receive capabilities are intended to allow music to be streamed directly from media players or mobile phones to car stereos or home stereo systems.

The chip's Bluetooth implementation includes algorithms intended to improve the co-existence of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and also uses a shared antenna system to minimize interference between the two technologies.

Integrating all the technologies on to a single die takes up less space and power than discrete chip implementations, Broadcom said.

The company's previous combination chips include the BCM4325, integrating Bluetooth, FM radio, and an earlier generation of Wi-Fi, and the BCM2049 Bluetooth/FM chip.

The chip is currently shipping in small quantities to some customers and will be manufactured in production quantities next year, Broadcom said.

Matthew Broersma of ZDNet UK reported from London.