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Early 802.11n Hardware May be Incompatible with Final Standard

6:30 am on May 4, 2006 | Category: Wi-Fi, Wireless Technology

Wireless hardware manufacturers are continuing their race to build faster and more advanced WLAN equipment, using the 802.11n draft specification.

Buyers should be cautious of these products, however, as 802.11n still hasnâ€™t become official, and thereâ€™s a good chance that early products wonâ€™t be interoperable with other standards, and could have some performance problems.

Ciscoâ€™s Linksys division rolled out the first of its Wireless-N network products last week, including a broadband router, targeted primarily towards consumers. The device uses several radios to simultaneously transfer two streams of data over multiple channels, allowing for a bandwidth twelve times that of the existing Wireless-G router, not to mention four times the transmission range.

The tradeoff of jumping to this new technology is that Linksys offers no guarantees that its early products will be upgradable to the final standard, likely to be ratified by the IEEE in about a year.

“There’s no such thing as 802.11n today, and there’s a great issue with calling something draft-compliant,” Mathias warns Farpoint Group analyst, Craig Mathias to consumers thinking of purchasing the new device.

Consumers need to ask themselves whether theyâ€™re okay with spending $150 on a piece of hardware that could be totally useless in a yearâ€™s time before making their decision to jump on the Wireless-N bandwagon.

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