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Even though the next generation of 802.11 technology still does not have the final approval of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), both consumer and enterprise Wi-Fi vendors have begun to offer compatible products. Ratification of Draft 2.0 of the new technology, called 802.11n, is not expected until early in 2009. However, every major enterprise vendor has already entered the 802.11n Draft 2.0 market. The first vendor to offer a commercial 802.11n access point was Meru Networks. It was followed by Trapeze Networks, Colubris Networks, Ruckus Wireless and then finally Cisco Systems and Aruba Networks. The entry of Cisco and Aruba was significant, as Cisco owns approximately 65 percent of the wireless local area network (WLAN) market, and Aruba is the second-largest Wi-Fi enterprise vendor. The adoption of 802.11n will increase Wi-Fi's data rate to real throughput of 100 Mb/s, or perhaps more, compared to 56 Mb/s in the 802.11g standard. This will not only increase data speeds but the wireless range and reliability as well. Early adopters of the new technology will likely be hospitals, telemedicine, and universities. The vendors are banking on little or no changes made by the IEEE in its adoption of the new standard, and hope that any changes that do occur will only require minor software upgrades.
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Information Sources, Inc.
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