Airgo claims current 802.11n specs interfere with 802.11b/g
If there's anything we hate more than format wars, it's incompatible wireless standards, which is why chipset manufacturer Airgo's pronouncement that the current draft version of next-gen WiFi standard 802.11n would likely "severely degrade - or even disable - nearby 802.11b and 802.11g networks," has us understandably concerned. It would be bad enough just to hear this news -- which was announced following the IEEE vote to move 11n "Draft 1.0" to the the "letter ballot" phase -- from an interested party, but TomsNetworking and other reviewers have independently noticed the problem when testing "pre-N" routers with Airgo chips from Netgear and Linksys. Airgo has already convinced major players Cisco and Moto to form a taskgroup that will tele-conference bi-weekly in order to address the issue, but we could see some resistance from other manufacturers like Atheros, Broadcom, and Marvell, who don't want to have to back off claims that their upcoming "draft N" devices will be firmware-upgradeable to the 11n standard as it is eventually ratified.
[Via Digital Media Thoughts]
