802.11n Wi-Fi to be final by September
updated 03:00 pm EDT, Tue July 21, 2009
802 11n WiFi Final by Sept
IEEE chairman Bob Heile late Monday signaled that the 802.11n standard for Wi-Fi was likely to be finalized by September. Heading up the 802.15 group for personal area networks, Helie said through e-mail that the faster wireless standard has been sent on to a review committee for approval, which would likely take place at the committee's next meeting in mid-September. The move comes after a "rocky" point of getting appropriate language into the late draft of the 802.11n format.
Although already seeing widespread use, the new standard has been one of the longest-delayed implementations of Wi-Fi and eventually forced the IEEE to ratify the Draft 2.0 spec so that companies could start building adapters, notebooks and routers with the up to 300Mbps peak speed without having to wait for the final version's uncertain approval but while promising compatibility later on.
Most companies making wireless computers are already using the draft version of 802.11n in their hardware.
