Intel to add prestandard 802.11n to Centrino in ‘07

Intel expects to put a prestandard version of IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi technology into its Centrino chips by next year, according to Alan Crouch, director and general manager of Intel’s Communications Technology Lab. Crouch spoke yesterday during a presentation at the IEEE Globecom 2006 Expo in San Francisco.The IEEE 802.11n standard, which is not expected to be ratified before the first half of 2008, will give users far greater performance and range than current Wi-Fi technology. The technology will someday scale to 600Mbit/sec. with a range 50% greater than Wi-Fi currently offers, according to IEEE member Bill McFarland.

Although the news caused barely a ripple of reaction in the audience of software and hardware engineers, there are industry analysts who have already warned large buyers of wireless technology to resist the temptation to deploy high-speed IEEE 802.11n devices until the standard is ratified.

That’s the advice of, among others, Gartner Inc. analyst Ken Dulaney, who said that a prestandard version might be fine in a home where the technology exists as a closed loop, but it could lead to interoperability problems in a corporate enterprise with a heterogeneous wireless environment.

Source: InfoWorld