The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has adopted a new draft specification (v1.10) of the forthcoming 802.11n Wi-Fi (wireless) standard. Sadly the final v2.0, which has suffered from several delays, is not expected to be finalised until some time next year!

Typically the length of this process has already forced a number of hardware manufacturers to deliver draft "pre-n" (v1.0) capable kit (routers etc.) to the market. Thankfully some of these should be upgradeable through firmware updates, although it will be interesting how many do that.

802.11n should ultimately be capable of speeds up to around 500Mbps, with a considerably greater range. In reality such theoretically maximums are rarely achieved.