802.11n ratification progress

*802.Friday - March 18, 2005*
IEEE steps closer to high-speed WLAN standard

By John Cox

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) task group 
charged with creating a high-speed wireless LAN standard last night 
eliminated one of the two remaining technical proposals.

The results of the vote were announced at the start of Thursday's 
morning session of the Task Group N (TGn) meeting in Atlanta.

TGn is charged with creating a WLAN standard that will deliver actual 
throughput of over 100Mbps, a quantum leap above the 20Mbps for today's 
802.11g and 11a WLANs. The current 802.11 standard eats up over half of 
the 54Mbps data rate for both 11g and 11a.

Members voted in favour of the plan from an industry group called TGn 
Sync, against a broadly similar plan from rival group WWiSE. Both make 
use of a radio technology called multiple inputs multiple outputs, or 
MIMO, to dramatically boost the amount of data that can be sent over a 
radio connection.

Under the IEEE's elaborate procedural rules, this "down select" step 
means that the TGn Sync plan now goes through a series of confirmation 
votes to garner the backing of 75 per cent of the members, says TG 
member Jeff Gilbert, director of algorithms and processing design for 
Atheros Communications.

If this plan gains the needed percentage, it becomes the basis of a 
draft 11n standard, according to Gilbert. If the plan fails to get the 
super-majority, TGn Sync members will work with the refuseniks, and 
possibly make a range of changes in the proposal, perhaps including some 
optional capabilities that WWiSE members might insist upon. Then the 
confirmation votes would begin again at the next task group meeting in May.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=11108

_______________________________________________
Talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://seattlewireless.net/mailman/listinfo/talk