The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and its 802.11n Task Group have finally, after seven long and repeatedly delayed years of development work, approved the standard for a new generation of wireless networking ( Wi-Fi LAN [WLAN] ) - 802.11n.

The "new" generation of Wi-Fi kit should deliver increased range and theoretical local networking speeds of up to 600Mbps, although 100Mbps+ is perhaps more realistic for real-world applications. By comparison the previous 802.11g standard was only rated to deliver speeds of up to 54Mbps (later came 100Mbps with multiple channels - MIMO).


However 802.11n has actually been around for the past two or three years in various DRAFT (e.g. DRAFT1.0, DRAFT 2.0) specification forms. Some of the most recently released DRAFT Wi-Fi adapters and broadband routers should benefit from a firmware update to the latest standard, although we suspect that earlier draft kit may not be so lucky.


We would have to disagree with Nikolich, 802.11n has been one of the most poorly managed and delayed standardisation processes in the history of the entire 802.11 specification sheet. Its methods have caused confusion on consumer markets and divided hardware choices between different iterations of the same standard. Publication of the amendment is scheduled for mid-October.