IEEE 802.11n delayed again

The IEEE is the standards body for Ethernet and it's wireless equivalents. In May the group that dealt with the new 802.11n standard couldn't reach consensus and there were over 12,000 comments to the draft 1.0 proposal. Even so manufacturers raced to announce product based on what has become known as pre802.11n which is unfortunate as there could still be major changes to the specification which may mean firmware updates aren't enough.

Current vendors silicon may not interoperate when operating in 802.11n (sorry pre802.11n) mode, though it will fall back to 802.11g which should work. Some vendors are selling hardware based on different chipsets so this can be a problem.

The next vote on the draft has now been pushed back until January 2007, which means real 802.11n devices are unlikely until at least 2008.