Hell has frozen over - 802.11n is Finalized!

[Josh]

Source

All,

802.11 had two items under consideration during the Standards Board meetings being held this week.

I’m am very pleased to announce that both P802.11w and P802.11n were approved today.

Although this email vehicle falls far short of expressing the sentiment, Thanks to the hundreds of 802.11members that contributed to these efforts, as well as the 802 EC and the IEEE Staff.

With me here as I write this is Paul Nikolich who wishes to add his congratulations to the group.

I expect to extend the celebration of the success , (while we continue work on the other amendments in process ) when we convene in Hawaii two weeks from now.

Hope to see you there.

Bruce

[f0dder]

Wow - I didn't think they'd ever finalize it

[lanux128]

this is really a wow and a lol moment, never thought we'd see anything other that a "draft-n" for a long time.

[IainB]

Good, I've been waiting for 802.11n to be agreed/ratified by the IEEE.
Now I can go out and buy that 802.11n gear I've been covetously watching for a couple (?) of years.

[Josh]

Why wait thou? The draft has worked beautifully for a lot of people. I have set it up for at least 5 households and every one of them loves it. Just because you have the draft standard and it's now been finalized does not mean that the draft will suddenly stop working

[IainB]

Well, I have to admit that I was using the word "DRAFT" as a valid reason for procrastinating over my purchase of something  (i.e., the 802.11n gear) that I wanted emotionally, when I should really be putting the funds elsewhere...if I were to be "sensible".

[lanux128]

yes draft-n is not all bad, it just means all 802.11n standards has not been 'approved', and now they have finally "agreed in principle". but i too was guilty of postponing some purchases due to the draft keyword until early this year when i made the plunge..

[rgdot]

Funny how these standards bodies work and their members go ahead and sell/produce/distribute products based on drafts

[wraith808]

Well, though they lose sales because of the DRAFT keyword, it's less sales than they would lose by not producing them at all.  After all, the bleeding edge isn't just for geeks anymore. 

[Carol Haynes]

Been using draft n for a couple of years now - the only issue I have had is that some Intel miniPCIe cards don't report the right speed (they report 50% of the actual speed). Not had any issues with functionality or speed though and the improved signal strength and range is fantastic.

[40hz]

Like Carol, I've been using draft N for a while. For the most part it worked reasonably well although there have been some maddening anomalies and intermittent problems. Speed advantages were mixed, but the improved signal strength was well worth whatever else you had to put up with.

Hopefully, this standard will get most issues cleared up once updated device firmware is available for download.

Fingers crossed.