Broader Broadband

You can never be too rich or too thin, as the saying goes. And for networking, you can never be too speedy. Unfortunately, to date, no wireless standard has been fast enough to send large files around the home. So if you want to send movies from your personal video recorder to your television, for example, you have to place the two near each other and add yet another cable to an ever-growing thicket. That’s about to change, at least for values of “about” that include “in about two years.” A year-old task group within the IEEE’s 802.11 local-area networking committee, designated “TGn” has begun reviewing proposals for a new flavor of Wi-Fi, as the standard is more popularly known, that would double data rates from the current top speed of 54 megabits per second specified by IEEE 802.11g. The planned 802.11n standard aims to have a top speed of 540 Mb/s. That’s faster than even the new USB 2.0 wired standard. Currently, there are four complete proposals before the task group, as well as 38 partial ones. The IEEE won’t have an approved TGn standard until November 2006 at the earliest, but manufacturers aren’t waiting. In late October, Belkin Corp., a Compton, Calif., maker of wireless networking equipment, was the first to jump the gun by shipping to CompUSA and Staples stores laptop cards and transmitter/ receivers that incorporate some of the technology proposed for 11n. Belkin’s pre-release announcements called the new equipment “pre-11n.” That raised a few hackles at the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry association that works with the IEEE committee. The alliance is concerned that Belkin and other manufacturers will create early products that won’t be compatible with one another. In response, Belkin, which was using the phrase “pre-11n”—without saying “IEEE” or “802”—as late as August, is now using the even more obscure term “pre-n.” Belkin’s products are based on some fundamental radio innovations by a Palo Alto, Calif., start-up, Airgo Networks Inc., which is a member of a clutch of companies behind one of the complete 11n proposals. Known as WWiSE (World Wide Spectrum Efficiency), the companies include Broadcom, Conexant, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments.