The road to next-generation Wi-Fi now appears to lead toward an industry-standard IEEE 802.11n specification, as the competing groups resolved their differences Wednesday.
Forty out of forty-two companies (with two abstentions) voted unanimously to accept the Enhanced Wireless Consortium specification, led by Intel, Atheros, and Broadcom. The proposal, as written, would boost Wi-Fi speeds up to 600 Mbits/sec. According to representatives from Atheros, the compromise proposal will be offered to the IEEE on Jan. 16.
The debate over 802.11n has raged for months, although on at least two occasions the groups indicated that they had arrived at least a temporary consensus. The EWC was formed in fall 2005 with the expressed purpose of hurrying the technology to market, since the competing TGnSync and WWiSE proposals couldn't garner enough votes in a straw poll held before the actual IEEE submission. To pass IEEE muster, a proposal requires a 75 percent "supermajority" of the members present.
A third group, MITMOT, made up of a rejected Mitsubishi/Motorola proposal, also joined TGnSync and WWiSE to form the Joint Proposal team to evaluate the EWC specification.
Much of the early 802.11n work was performed by Airgo Networks, which developed MIMO (Multiple-In, Multiple-Out) antennas and related chipsets that could boost the throughput of the wireless radios. When the EWC was formed, Airgo executives complained that the EWC was unnecessary and would derail the standards-setting process. Intel, however, said it would work with other industry players to facilitate the process.
"The adoption of this specification is a huge step forward for the Joint Proposal team," said Bill McFarland, chief technology officer of Atheros Communications, in a statement emailed to ExtremeTech. "For the first time the team now has a complete and consistent definition for next-generation, high performance wireless LAN devices. This places the JP in an excellent position to deliver a proposal to the IEEE next week."
According to an Atheros representative, the Joint Proposal group will work in a face-to-face forum to finalize the proposal. If no serious roadblocks are proposed to delay the process, the proposal will be introduced to the IEEE next week in Hawaii.
Forty out of forty-two companies (with two abstentions) voted unanimously to accept the Enhanced Wireless Consortium specification, led by Intel, Atheros, and Broadcom. The proposal, as written, would boost Wi-Fi speeds up to 600 Mbits/sec. According to representatives from Atheros, the compromise proposal will be offered to the IEEE on Jan. 16.
The debate over 802.11n has raged for months, although on at least two occasions the groups indicated that they had arrived at least a temporary consensus. The EWC was formed in fall 2005 with the expressed purpose of hurrying the technology to market, since the competing TGnSync and WWiSE proposals couldn't garner enough votes in a straw poll held before the actual IEEE submission. To pass IEEE muster, a proposal requires a 75 percent "supermajority" of the members present.
A third group, MITMOT, made up of a rejected Mitsubishi/Motorola proposal, also joined TGnSync and WWiSE to form the Joint Proposal team to evaluate the EWC specification.
Much of the early 802.11n work was performed by Airgo Networks, which developed MIMO (Multiple-In, Multiple-Out) antennas and related chipsets that could boost the throughput of the wireless radios. When the EWC was formed, Airgo executives complained that the EWC was unnecessary and would derail the standards-setting process. Intel, however, said it would work with other industry players to facilitate the process.
"The adoption of this specification is a huge step forward for the Joint Proposal team," said Bill McFarland, chief technology officer of Atheros Communications, in a statement emailed to ExtremeTech. "For the first time the team now has a complete and consistent definition for next-generation, high performance wireless LAN devices. This places the JP in an excellent position to deliver a proposal to the IEEE next week."
According to an Atheros representative, the Joint Proposal group will work in a face-to-face forum to finalize the proposal. If no serious roadblocks are proposed to delay the process, the proposal will be introduced to the IEEE next week in Hawaii.