Next-generation WiFi standards talks: back to the drawing board

Ahhh yes, yet another standards war is raging, elsewhere in the galaxy. This one concerns 802.11n, the next-generation WiFi standard that hopes to boost LAN throughput to 300Mbps. Just as with the whole DVD format war, we've got a Sharks and Jets thang going on with two opposed camps: TGn Sync (Task Group 'n' synchronisation — unfortunately, not a boy band) is comprised of biggies Intel, Samsung, Sony, Nortel, Qualcomm, Philips, Panasonic and Atheros Communications lives across the lake from the WWiSE group made up of Broadcom, Airgo Networks, Motorola, Nokia, Texas Instruments, NTT and France Telecom. In the most recent round of talks in Cairns, Australia, the TGn Sync camp got up and did their number and subsequently fell 26 percent short of the 75 percent approval they need to get adoption for their plan. This is the second time the 802.11n task group has voted down a proposal, so now all eyes will be on the strongest alternative proposal to be put forth by the WWiSE camp. The WWiSE proposal is quite a bit less complex than the recent TGn Sync proposal, which they argue will keep the cost of implementation down. Both proposals are based on MIMO technology, which allows two separate signals to be transmitted over the same 802.11 radio channel simultaneously, without inteference. Let's get it together, peeps! Us ubiquitous computing-type geeks is waitin'!