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IEEE Developments in Wireless Networking

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jan 20, 2006 10:27 AM
from the how-to-talk-to-the-eather dept.
Wireless Networking Hardware Technology
JamesAlfaro writes "After much wrangling between opposing interests among the members of the IEEE, a first draft for the Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11n specification received approval in a Thursday meeting. Final ratification of the standard is not expected until next year." Relatedly, judgecorp writes "The IEEE has disbanded its working group on ultrawideband. They are leaving the marketplace to decide between two competing approaches." From the article: "Freescale, first to the market with UWB products, believes its headstart will give it a long-term victory, while WiMedia, with the backing of industry heavyweights including Intel and Microsoft, reckons its punch will eventually win through, even without a formal IEEE standard."
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IEEE Developments in Wireless Networking 25 Comments More /

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  • Wait faster (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2006, @10:33AM (#14518587)
    So now I can wait on the hotel's 1.544 DSL line even faster?
  • Are the various 802.11 "Pre-n" routers compatible with the draft standard? That would be unfortunate if they aren't, because they are rather expensive compared to b/g ones.

  • Think of the consumers! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by plbland (922595) on Friday January 20 2006, @10:36AM (#14518602) Homepage
    I think it would be quite nice if they could at least co-operate to some degree with these UWB WiFi technologies. It's easy for the /. crowd to understand these compatibility issues but it can only be hassle for the general consumer who barely understand the current wireless standards/speeds.
  • Albert: You gonna say somethin? They're arguing 'bout you.
    Pogo: Ever see two dogs fight over a bone?
    Albert: yea
    Pogo: Ever see the bone fight back?

    Albert looks thoughful.

  • How bout *Nix support for 'b' ??? (Score:3, Funny)

    by smokestacklightning (550330) on Friday January 20 2006, @10:39AM (#14518629)
    Great, another wireless standard whose lack of *nix Driver support will undoubtedly make my machine act all twitchy ...

    How about out-of-the-box *nix support that doesn't involve me devoting my spare time, work hours and waking moments getting it to run, or run as it should ...

    Ran with NDISWrapper for a long time on my laptop, gave up after my last upgrade when Ubuntu dicked me. Now I've just got this really long, really sad cat5 cable that follows me around the house... My dog thinks it's his pal ...
    • <rose-colored glasses>
      Got to have some manufacturers with enough sack to GPL the driver.
      Then, the market needs to buy lots of them, so that the video chip and hard drive manufacturers will also get the clue.
      Loadshedding these godforsaken software patents will certainly abet the effort, but that front takes serious political will.
      Summary: economic and political effort required, golden future to follow.
      </rose-colored glasses>

  • Subspace Communication within the S-T Continuum! (Score:3, Funny)

    by digitaldc (879047) on Friday January 20 2006, @10:40AM (#14518636)
    Another technology called Space Time Block Coding (STBC) will reduce signal dropout by using multiple antennas for redundancy.

    I knew all those years of Star Trek would eventually lead to every day applications.
    Now we can use our wireless routers for subspace communication [nasa.gov] with strange new worlds and new life forms, and boldly route where no one has routed before.

  • Not needed for VoIP (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hey (83763) on Friday January 20 2006, @10:45AM (#14518669) Journal
    Its cool and all that they are making a faster standard but the article says:

    This technology in particular is key to enhancing the VoIP user experience.

    I get 54Mbps on WiFi now. That's more than fast enough for VoIP.

    • I remember using voice chat rooms best part of a decade ago, so yeah VoIP is basic so far as bandwidth needs. I expect they're using "VoIP" as the trendy name for chat in general (c.f. mp3 vs. audio file) and thinking of conferencing like iChat AV with multiple video streams but higher resolution so that you can see useful stuff rather than just have the pleasure of seeing a moving face.

    • Re:Not needed for VoIP (Score:5, Informative)

      by tpgp (48001) on Friday January 20 2006, @11:11AM (#14518860) Homepage
      I get 54Mbps on WiFi now. That's more than fast enough for VoIP.

      Throughput is not the only requirements for VOIP.

      From the article:
      Another technology called Space Time Block Coding (STBC) will reduce signal dropout by using multiple antennas for redundancy.

      This technology in particular is key to enhancing the VoIP user experience.
      The article also mentions power management improvements (for devices running on batteries - like cell phones), longer range and better collision management.

      Together, these would make a significant difference to VOIP - even if Mbps were lower.
    • Current wifi is sufficient for a single user on a single AP. However, with the current environment there is no provision for QoS in the shared media environment. VoIP requires consistent data delivery for a good user experience which is provided through QoS. It's not purely a matter of bandwidth.
    • No you don't. No one gets 54Mbps throughput on 802.11a/b/g wireless. That may be the advertized rate, but it's not your typical or even maximum bandwidth.

      Still, you are correct that even 802.11b at low speeds is good enought for VoIP as far as throughput. It's more SNR and the (lack of real) QoS that are the problems areas.
  • With so many (or so few?) standards, I think over time we'll have devices that speak most, some, or all of these protocols. We had the same thing with the old-style telephone modems, the 16.8 HST, and early pseudo-56Ks. What I want is more public bandwidth. Will the FCC dedicate a TV channel to the public? Will that help our wireless Internet?

  • Great, just great.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 10Ghz (453478) on Friday January 20 2006, @10:47AM (#14518697)
    More technologies that do the same thing, yet are incompatible with each other. "Oh, we'll let the market sort this one out". translation: "MWAHAHAHAHAA! Screw the consumers! It's up to the little guy to figure this one out, because we will have nothing to do with it!".
    • "Freescale, first to the market with UWB products, believes its headstart will give it a long-term victory, while WiMedia, with the backing of industry heavyweights including Intel and Microsoft, reckons its punch will eventually win through, even without a formal IEEE standard"

      Emphasis mine... why do those companies and non-adherence to standards not surprise me?

  • I'd abandon ultra-wideband too (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The practical problems with ultra-wideband are huge. This is probably a technology that should be approached incrementally rather than all at once.

    We've played with an ultra-wideband RF link in the lab. It's not pretty. Between the top of the band and the bottom of the band, the propagation changes a lot. Ditto for the noise profile. We used discone antennas (because they are inherently wideband) but those aren't practical for mobile use.

    We were successful in the lab for low data rates but, of course,
      • Lets get some facts straight:
        UWB has been around since the early 1950's when the military started developing it. It is ACTUALLY a simplier radio than an 802.11 radio,

        While we're getting facts straight...

        Actually there were TWO major types of UWB being considered by the IEEE group. One I'd characterize as an orthogonal-wavelet direct-sequence spread spectrum approach, plowsharing older military tech, which appears to be the one you're describing. The other was a orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing a

  • Relevant UWB Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by writertype (541679) on Friday January 20 2006, @12:08PM (#14519319)
    Given that the CNET link above seems tied to the 802.11n standard, here's a link on the whole IEEE UWB story, from ExtremeTech.

    UWB Standards Group Calls It Quits " [extremetech.com]

    Unable to resolve a deadlock between two competing proposals, the IEEE working group responsible for the ultrawideband technology threw in the towel Thursday.

    The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.3a task group (TG3a), which oversaw the formation of the UWB standard agreed to withdraw the Jan. 2003 project authorization request that formed the group. Instead, the two competing technologies - MB-OFDM, championed by the Intel-led WiMedia Forum, and DS-UWB, promoted by Freescale Semiconductor and its UWB Forum - will be left to fight it out in the marketplace.

  • Faster then 100 mbit? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tecker (793737) on Friday January 20 2006, @01:14PM (#14519891) Homepage
    If I am correct in thinking that "pre-n" and the new 802.11n will be faster then 100mbits that most people have in their house.This article shows that over the air will be 200mbps+ and the MAC SAP would peg out at 100mbps. [deviceforge.com]

    That is all well and good for corperate environments that need network access to programs from a server but seriously. This speed is 40 times faster then the connection I have at home for my internet. Unless you are doing things over your home network (Streaming video I suppose) there is no reason to upgrade.

    The trouble is that theses companies will be pushing "N" routers like crazy when noone needs it. Unless it offers super Encryption of 802.11i [wikipedia.org] then count me out.

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