Last Thursday, the IEEE announced that the 802.11n Task Group (TGn) had approved a draft of what may be the most significant new standard to come out of IEEE in the past 10 years. Based largely on a specification developed by the Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC), an association of leading network silicon developers, the proposal, which required a 75 percent vote for passage, garnered 184 votes affirmative and 0 votes opposed, with 4 abstentions.

Airgo, the inventor of the MIMO magic on which 11n is based, voted in support of this "compromise" that was made necessary when TGn was divided between competing proposals despite the fact that the draft represents a clear failure in its longstanding effort to influence the details of the final standard. Airgo still stands to reap some licensing fees from its invention, but the company's leadership position in the MIMO WLAN chip market has been dealt a serious blow.

Broadcom and Atheros wasted little time in capitalizing on the occasion, first patting themselves on the back for their work in driving 11n, then announcing products based on the hot-out-of-the-oven draft standard, and finally suggesting that these chips would be compatible with the final standard. Never mind the fact that the final standard is not likely to be approved for another 12 months. When you get a vote of 184-0, you earn some market capital, and Broadcom and Atheros are planning to spend it. Though Airgo deserves credit for conceding standards defeat with considerable dignity, the company couldn't resist the temptation to rip its competitors, stating in a press release that vender promises of products that would be firmware upgradeable to the final standard are irresponsible and misleading to consumers.

This criticism is a bit ironic, since Airgo's wireless router vendors have marketed products based on its TrueMIMO chipsets as "Pre-N" for quite a long time. Still, Airgo has a valid point. To suggest that the road to 802.11n won't have a few potholes along the way is quite naive. Given the underlying complexity of this technology, delivering 802.11n chipsets that are not only interoperable with each other but also with legacy 802.11n standards will require significant effort. Nonetheless, it's great to see Atheros and Broadcom, not to mention Marvel, Intel and Airgo, getting ready to slug it out in the ultra-competitive market for wireless silicon and wireless network reference designs. These new offerings will serve as the basis for a whole new generation of product offerings that will have a dramatic impact on both consumer and enterprise markets.

Given extremely high unit volumes, silicon vendors will make every effort to first win new business in the home networking market. We've always been a little dubious about the value of higher speed wireless data networking in the home in light of Internet access connection speeds, which seldom exceed 5 Mbps. However, it's not pure data networking or Internet access that is the end game for 802.11n. Rather, it's the home entertainment market. Vendors were quick to point out that their new silicon would be fast enough to support multiple concurrent HDTV video streams. Based on our experience testing MIMO offerings from Airgo, we believe them. But as is often the case in networking, the greatest challenges lie in software and standardization. Despite making great interoperability strides over the past several years, 802.11 is anything but plug and play. To get to the point where cable boxes, televisions and home-entertainment centers can be seamlessly integrated into a home network without turning for assistance to someone who has CWNA certification will require lots of work and unprecedented cooperation among companies that aren't always anxious to do so. But when it arrives--as it surely will- -it's going to be real impressive and a joy for multimedia junkies everywhere. And provided price points aren't excessive, product packaging that promises 100 Mbps throughput will move plenty of boxes in a consumer culture where faster is always better.

For the enterprise, the end game is similar. Craig Mathias, noted industry analyst and principal of The Farpoint Group, characterizes MIMO as perhaps the most important radio technology ever and asserts that MIMO will drive a market shift away from Ethernet as an access medium, with wireless becoming the default network connectivity for essentially everyone. I agree with Mathias, but the transition won't necessarily be a smooth one. It will take a while for enterprise- class 802.11n APs (access points) to make their way to market, especially from Cisco, which seldom rushes unbaked network products to market. It's also likely that this announcement will cause some stagnation in the existing enterprise Wi-Fi market, especially for organizations planning very large rollouts during the coming year. Vendors will feel pressure to not only quickly release 802.11n products but also guarantee conformance to the final standard.

The final market worth following as relates to 802.11n is the market for wireless client devices. Although Intel has played an important role in driving EWC and the draft standard, it's not clear how quickly the company will shift to 802.11n as the default radio module for notebook computers. After all, it hasn't been all that long that Intel has offered a viable multiband 802.11ag offering. Before long, the definition of Centrino will be changing, but how soon that will happen is far from clear.

In the end, one can't help but marvel at the technical accomplishment represented by 802.11n. When you consider how far the WLAN market has come in so short a period of time, it's a tribute to scientific discovery, one more example of technology offering great opportunities for innovation.