IEEE Passes 802.11n Standard Draft

The IEEE is, of course, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Meeting in Hawaii (well, SOMEBODY’S gotta do it) they passed the first draft of the new 802.11n standard for wireless, which will eventually provide up to 600 MBps in throughput over wireless networking! Dewd!

IEEE Committee Passes 1st Draft of 802.11n

“Broadcom and Marvell have already announced chips based on the draft, with Broadcom saying its products would be upgradeable in case of any changes in the final revision. The first 802.11n chips could be released by the end of this quarter, Marvell said.

Passage of a proposal requires a 75 percent vote in the affirmative, which it easily surpassed on a vote of 184 to 0 with four abstentions. However, final ratification is not expected until 2007.

802.11n uses a technology called MIMO, which stands for multiple-in, multiple out. In layman’s terms, it means a device could have multiple antennas that handle more than one data stream at a time, thus speeding the transfer of data tremendously.

According to test, data rates of up to 600 MBps could be expected. 802.11n devices would also be backwards compatible with the earlier 802.11a, b and g specifications.”