Fixed Wireless Technology

802.11 To Get Speed Boost?

The IEEE has a study group pushing for new standards to officially bring throughput levels for wireless LANs up to 108Mbps—or faster.

by 802.11 Planet Staff [August 15, 2003]

While many vendors have played with the technology of 802.11 products to get proprietary speed boosts of 72 Mbps and even 108 Mbps, the official number for the maximum speed with 802.11a and 802.11g has always been 54 Mbps. But that might change.

Unstrung.com is reporting, based on a conversation with Stuart Kerry, chairman of the IEEE's 802.11 Working Group, that a collection of members called the High Throughput Study Group is working on a potential high-performance standard that would boost both 802.11b (now at 11 Mbps) and 802.11a standards.

While not official yet, this standard for increased throughput might be called 802.11n. Proposals say it could go to 108 Mbps or beyond—as much as 320 Mbps.

The speed increase would take place due to the handling of problems such as lost packets, interference, and other issues that regularly impact WLANs.

This new standard is not expected to be complete until 2005 or 2006.

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