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802.11n Delayed to 2008

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Aug 19, 2006 08:15 AM
from the fine-tuning dept.
Wireless Networking Hardware
An anonymous reader writes "Looks like we have to wait some more for 802.11n and promised 100 Mbps speeds. IEEE has delayed ratification of the standard until 2008, yet again, due to continuing problems with interoperability and too many comments from chipset manufacturers and other interested parties. Analysts are telling firms not to deploy n until the new standard is ratified."
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802.11n Delayed to 2008 50 Comments More /

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  • Terrible idea... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by evilviper (135110) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:30AM (#15940185) Journal
    Manufacturers aren't waiting... They've been rolling it out for quite a while now, and will surely continue to do so, standard or no.

    Delaying the standard for more than a year is only going to ensure that none of these systems will be interoperable, and certainly not forewards compatible.

    An imperfect (slightly less backwards-compatible) standard now, would be much better than a perfect standard in 2 years.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gregmark (750089)
      Right. Like US Robotics waited to roll out a 56K modem until v.90 was finalized.

    • No joke! (Score:4, Informative)

      by Nomihn0 (739701) on Saturday August 19 2006, @10:40AM (#15940691)
      I work tech support for an academic institution that will remain unnamed. A parent called up asking if we had switched to 802.11N yet. I replied that, given its draft status, we had not. He seemed appalled. He demanded to know how we could play fiddle while our network slid into antiquity. His child had to have the best and us be damned if if didn't exist in a functional form.
       
      These companies will continue to manufacture specialty equipment based on draft N specifications for business use-- and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem lies with the Joe-sixpack consumers who don't recognize the technology's proper application.
    • From what I've been reading about Pre-N, "slightly less backwards compatible" is an understatement. There are simply too many problems with it right now, and the last thing I want is for all my neighbors to start nuking the spectrum with these Pre-N radio jammers.

  • who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gothmolly (148874) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:33AM (#15940195)
    Wireless is a convenience, in almost every case I've seen. Once you hit 11 Mb/s or double that at 22 Mb/s, what more do you need? How much bandwidth does reading email, surfing CNN, or running SSH require?

    • Re:who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rollercoaster375 (935898) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:43AM (#15940232)
      The same reason people use Gigabit Ethernet. The point n is not for extra-network protocols, but inter-network ones (For example: VNC)

    • Re:who cares? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by smoker2 (750216) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:47AM (#15940245) Homepage Journal
      I run a media server for all my saved tv and ripped movies. I initially set it up to be wireless, as it would be nice to have it out of the way somewhere. But as it does not run the tv card and software, nor the ripping software, all the saved media had to be transferred over the network. When you are talking a couple of gig a pop, it starts to get tedious, especially when watching a stored movie at the same time, so I went back to wired (for the time being).

      Not all wireless apps are for use in the mobile market. The intended final incarnation of my media server will see remote wireless nano-PCs attached to tvs all around the house, to access all content through the server. When 2 or more devices are running concurrently, 22 Mbps gets saturated and you get the *buffering* that we all hate.

      Roll on 1 Gbps wireless !

      • Roll on 1 Gbps wireless !

        Except that 1Gbps wireless won't really be 1Gbps, just like current incarnations perform far below their nominal specs. And by then you'll be pushing multiple HD streams, plus you'll still have to deal with interference from other wireless devices both yours and your neighbors'.

        Wired will always be faster and more reliable. Unless you just have no other choice, I'd stick with that.

    • Because wireless is a shared medium and those 11Mb/s is shared by n users?
    • 802.11N is more about range and reliability than bandwidth. Besides, do you think that 640k is enough for everyone?
      • If you mean 640kbps, then that's enough for most web-surfers. They'll get by, and pages will load fast enough.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by value_added (719364)
      How much bandwidth does reading email, surfing CNN, or running SSH require?

      Not that much. What does require bandwidth are the admin-type things that we all have to do (or should be doing). Backing up and/or restoring from a machine on your local network is one. Ever try to ghost a Windows system to a network share? You'll be crying for more bandwidth. Then, there's all that multimedia stuff already described in a previous post. Myself, for my personal systems, backups are all network-based, installati
    • Wireless is not "good enough" until it obsoletes the expense and inconvenience of running cable everywhere. That clearly hasn't happened yet.
    • Right now I am happy with using the 802.11g standard on my LAN but I can see the uses of higher bandwidth in the not so distant future for stuff such as as streaming HD Quality video from a cable box to PCs anywhere at home. I currently use a Slingbox to stream video to a single client at a time at 2Mbps. However, new devices such as the HAVA video streamer from Snappy are now on sale could do multicast streaming at up to 8 Mbps. Stream multicast, say to 3 wireless clients at that rate and you start to bump
    • where 1 or maybe 2 users are utilizing an AP, seldom simultaneously.

      In a corporate environment, where many active users may be on an AP, more bandwidth is can be very useful, and "n" is, well, almost twice as good as what's available.

      Remember, wireless is a shared medium, like old Ethernet hubs, and that won't change within the current RF bandwidth limitations. Moving from a wired, switched 100 mbps connection to shared 54 mbps (802.11a or g) is almost always a very significant step down in speed in an en
    • What about N's extended range? That might be more valuable. Though I have tried N in my home, and it still doesn't reach all the rooms... and no, I don't have a big house, just a 2-floor apartment...

  • Speed is good but ubiquity would be better (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MarkWatson (189759) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:41AM (#15940223) Homepage
    I live in the mountains and I get my broadband from a small local provider who has a few inexpensive transmitters around town. A good solution for a small town.

    I would really like to see universal coverage, and low bandwidth by throttling socket connections to keep people from abusing the system would be OK. There would still be a huge market for high speed wireless, cable, and fiber, but a backgound universal lower level of service system would be a good infrastructure investment.

    Unfortunately, this is very unlikely to happen in the USA given our current political climate that subsidizes corporations and for political reasons needs to inhibit growth and prosperity of the middle class and small local businesses(just pointing out that the middle class is the largest threat to the republican dream of a 1000 year reich: permanent control).
    • Paradoxically, middle class was more inclined towards republicans than the average Joe Voter in 2000. If you take college educated, middle-income, family having voters. There was statistics on the internet about, but I lost the link.

      I have only to guess what happened after 2000. /sarcasm
    • I would really like to see universal coverage, and low bandwidth by throttling socket connections to keep people from abusing the system would be OK. There would still be a huge market for high speed wireless, cable, and fiber, but a backgound universal lower level of service system would be a good infrastructure investment.

      I would much rather that such a network be created by the citizens than some government monopoly (presumably with eavesdropping and censorship built in). Hopefully what you describe will
  • If they wait too long, linksys' pre-ratification equipment could become a defacto standard. They've got high throughput equipment on the shelf today. I can go to staples right now and buy pretty darn good close to 802.11n speed equipment. By the time the standard is finalized I could have gotten a good 2 years out of their equipment. It may or may not work with competitor cards, but with such a lead my guess is any competitor is going to try and make it work with linksys' equipment rather than try to play c
    • Have you actually read the reviews of the Pre-N crap that's out there? (Google them up; there are quite a number) Poor range, not as fast as they want, and they are not "good neighbors" as they totally clobber (jam) existing b/g networks. The problem with Linksys and everyone else pushing out these Pre-N products is that there are serious flaws with them that they're ignoring, and they're totally flaunting the IEEE in their desire to grab market share.

      Yes, the idiots who are selling Pre-N today will prob
    • Linksys is not the only company who has Draft-N. Netgear has the Rangemax Next (not to be confused with the original Rangemax or the Rangemax 240 which are like Belkin's pre-N but are not Draft-N - the N is really big on the box). Dlink also has Draft-N now as well as Belkin (not Belkin's pre-N, Belkin really has a Draft-N now). Linksys, Netgear, Dlink, and Belkin all have Draft-N.

  • In Soviet Russia (Score:4, Funny)

    by davidwr (791652) on Saturday August 19 2006, @10:17AM (#15940579) Homepage Journal
    In Soviet Russia, standards delay YOU.

    Oh wait. Dammit.
    • FIOS @ 30 MBps does usually tap out 802.11g. It comes much closer to its theoretical speeds then 802.11g. Also much more importantly trying to stream HD content across my home network is more then enough to overwhelm the 802.11g network. I'm sure other people have various other applications where they're looking forward to a nice speed bump as well.

    • Re:honestly, folks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by setirw (854029) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:50AM (#15940258) Homepage
      What do you think of gigabit ethernet, then? As with any networking protocl, 802.11x has more uses than merely connecting to the Internet.
    • As you claim to work for a wireless company, I would have thought that you at least would get the difference between MB/sec and Mb/sec.

      No wonder the average consumer gets confused.

      • No kidding. I view these errors as being on the same level as saying "My wireless gives me 11Mb/hour."
      • Changing the semantics based on capatilization is a very unfortunatey convention, and not consistently followed. I hereby request that the entire world switch over to writing "bit" or "byte" instead of b or B.
      • There are several problems with that.
        • A 'B' isn't a real unit. If you mean 8 bits, use octet.
        • Communication engineers use bits and symbols, not bytes/octets.
        • Lower-case Latin letters aren't always available.
        • BPS, KBPS, and MBPS have meant "bits per second" for more than 50 years.
        • The US is not the entire world. A lot of us have faster net connections than 2 or 3 megabits per second. My DSL, for example, is 5mbit, which is higher than the real-world throughput 802.11 gets you. My ISP also offers ADSL2+ services up to 16 mbit speeds. Now, in my experience, the real-world performance of 802.11g is 20mbit at close range, and 10mbit in another room. 10mbit isn't fast enough for my ISP's fastest tier of DSL service. On top of that, 10mbit makes sending large files over a network rather sl
    • Intranet. Now you see why 100 Mgbt/s-1 and way up is interresting, attractive and sometimes NEEDED. Mileage may vary depending on application.
      • Even though you've got the capitalization of the "giga" wrong, I'm interested in this 100 Mega-Gigabit Seconds per mile connection you speak of.

        Will this enable me to transfer a set number of seconds based upon miles? I'm interested in your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

    • Re:honestly, folks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by owlstead (636356) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:55AM (#15940273)
      In the netherlands, you can get 22 Mb/s from certain cable internet providers (e.g. multikabel [multikabel.nl]). That's a solid throughput of 2/3 MB/s. And even then you presume that WiFi can only be used for internet. Note that 11n is meant for home/office use. Maybe you could broaden your views a bit?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by GotenXiao (863190)
      I'm posting this comment on my desktop via VNC from my laptop. Raw-encoded VNC over SSH with compression gets me anywhere from 3mbit/s to 20mbit/s. That's on "54" mbit/s wi-fi, and I'm two floors from the router (but the maximum I've ever achieved, even with the laptop right next to the router, is around 25mbit/s).

      Stop assuming that wireless is only ever used for accessing the internet. I'd love to be able to get a solid 20MB/s (note: megabyte, not megabit) sustained transfer rate over wireless. 11n has the

    • Re:honestly, folks (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TheRaven64 (641858) on Saturday August 19 2006, @08:57AM (#15940285) Homepage Journal
      I don't mean to sound trollish, but no one I know has an internet connection that can even deliver up to a solid 2-3MB/sec throughput. So, in theory, 802.11b @ 11MB/sec still hasn't even been TRULY maximized. And based on that principal, even @ 54MB/sec.

      It's a lot easier to understand your post if you don't get MB and Mb confused. My current Internet connection is 4Mb/s, and I can saturate that (500KB/s) for extended periods. An 802.11b connection is a theoretical 11Mb/s, but in practice can be a lot lower. Also consider than any wireless connection is shared, and multiple people accessing it at once can dramatically reduce the bandwidth available.

      My home network uses 802.11g, and I can generally get a sustained transfer rate of about 2-3MB/s for local traffic. The speed of my Internet connection has doubled every 12-18 months in the last 4 years, and I have no reason to suspect this will slow down any time soon. It only needs to double two more times before I start saturating an 802.11g network, and that's assuming that no one else is using it for local transfers. In three-four years, 802.11g will not be fast enough.

      If you 'work for a wireless company,' you should also be aware that 802.11n is not a replacement for 802.11g; it is a WMAN solution, not a WLAN solution; more of a competitor to 4G mobile telephone connections than it is to WiFi.

        • Holy crap, where do you live do get such a great ISP?

          I live in the UK. I don't have a great ISP, I have a cheap one. And I have one of their cheap connection packages; the top of the (consumer) line is for a 10Mb/s connection, although I don't know how well that performs in the real world. They are currently in the process of upgrading their infrastructure, so I expect to see greater speeds next year.

          The speed is not that great, since I live quite near the edge of a relatively small town. In major m

    • How is this interesting? Everyone knows that this isn't going to get you faster internet access. That would be like waxing your Motorola Surfboard. There is a chance that some people do want to be able to transfer data in their own home at these speeds. I personally could use the bandwidth. For security, VPN works fine. Screw WEP/WPA, and all that jazz.

      The most important thing is compatability. Nobody will use N if there isn't compatability between different implementations.

    • Re:honestly, folks (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MobyDisk (75490) on Saturday August 19 2006, @09:06AM (#15940318) Homepage
      That's right. 100base-T and gigabit ethernet are pointless. Why have a LAN that is faster than the internet?

      Is there some strange reason that Slashdotters think that the only use for wireless networks is browsing the Internet? None of you have ever used wireless to print, or copy a file off a server, or play a LAN game, or stream video, had more than one wireless device running?

      • Re:honestly, folks (Score:5, Interesting)

        by timeOday (582209) on Saturday August 19 2006, @10:13AM (#15940560)
        See, we all know it's useful for us. But we slashdotters are too savvy to think about our own needs and preferences, so instead we discuss everything in terms of some mythical "average joe" or "joe sixpack." Joe's life consists solely of beer and football, so almost evey new technology is worthless to him. But suffering others' foolishness is the burden of our genius, so we defer all our opinions to Joe.
      • Is there some strange reason that Slashdotters think that the only use for wireless networks is browsing the Internet? None of you have ever used wireless to print, or copy a file off a server, or play a LAN game, or stream video, had more than one wireless device running?

        Sometimes I think that all of the real-world geeks have got up and left. You know, the folks who work on networks at places that are willing to pay them money to do so?

        That or newbie Friday has been held over into Saturday this week.

    • Don't worry, you don't sound trollish. You sound like a moron.

      Can you please let us know what wireless company you work for so I can avoid using them? Thanks.

    • I get the impression you think wireless is only for Internet access.

      I do agree that current technoligies should be maximized but there are applications where faster wireless needs are justified.

      For example, I work at a college and someone thought they could offer a medical imaging class utilizing a cart of mobile laptops and the WLAN. Can you imagine 20-30 wirless clients trying to work with very large images over a shared 11Mbps WLAN? This would not be a pretty site.

      At home my "server" is a WLAN client and
      • Ever hear of projects like the wireless deployment for the entire city of Minneapolis (or other cities I would guess to)? When the internet connection could be as much as 1gb/s or more, with the ability to add more as needed. I am not saying every user should expect 100mb/s transfer speeds becauses let's face it, a lot of servers download/upload from/to do not send/receive that much typically. You'd like only hit anyhint near 100mb/s when doing a torrent download or something p2p or else running your own se

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by SteakEggs (734164)
      I believe your missing a few points; I live in an area where Verizon is rolling out FOIS at a grand scale and this has a speed that you can get today of 30 Mbps/5 Mbps. Low latency fiber connection with practically limitless upgrade potential. Plus I work in a university setting where we have wireless throughout the campus and have to separate certain services from it due to the lack of range or speed concerns. N would be an ideal product for both of these areas. I'm sure Apple and others are waiting for t
    • ...that folks at home use wireless just for internet surfing and downloading. However there are other sources of content beside the web which require higher bandwidth. For example, you can have a couple of Slingboxes or Snappy HAVA's that could wirelessly stream video from your cable boxes, dvds, etc., PVRs, on you LAN to any PCs anywhere on your LAN (and even broadcast it over the internet). I actually had to upgrade my 802.11b to g because I ran into bandwidth limitations.
    • It's not just about throughput. WiMax is going to have increased range, and I'm more excited about that. Bring on the P2P mesh internet already!
    • This is the sort of thing that could kill the NIC

      Umm, excuse me, even wireless cards are NICs (Network Interface Cards.) NIC is going nowhere anytime soon.
    • In layman's terms:

      THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 3G. This is not the kind of wireless internet you can get by hooking up your cell-phone to your laptop or using one of those little Laptop cards that lets you get internet anywhere there's a cellular signal.

      This is about Local-Area wireless, commonly used to share a cable or DSL internet connection within a single home or business. With 802.n you can probably cover 20 of your neighbors homes too but going from "the beach to the city and out to the suburbs.
    • Hm,for what you describe you need to wait until 802.16 (WiMax) deploys.

      That will give you a lot of the longer distances that everyone is asking for.

      People try to get 802.11 boxes to do a lot more than they were ever designed for.

      Remeber the 802.11 standard(s) wereall set for (if I remember correctly) something like 30meters maxdistance.

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