Faster wireless standard approved

Posted on 13 Jun 2003 at 11:14

The 802.11g wireless networking standard yesterday gained final approval from the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers).

The standard raises the maximum speed for wireless connectivity from 11Mbps to 54Mbps, without compromising existing installations. 54Mb 802.11g products are backwards compatible with 11Mb 802.11b-based networks.

'IEEE 802.11g gives WLAN suppliers and users added flexibility in choosing systems that best fits their needs,' said Stuart J. Kerry, IEEE 802.11 Working Group chair. 'Given the millions of 802.11b-based WLANs in place worldwide, the market demand for the extension to 54 Mbps has been quite strong.

'One reason for this is that the higher speed extends the use of this widely deployed WLAN technology into a growing variety of home, consumer, business and public networking applications. In addition to making IEEE 802.11b networks more efficient, the new amendment ensures users that the equipment in these networks will be interoperable.'

Pre-empting the IEEE's final approval of the standard, Apple began selling 802.11g products under the AirPort Extreme brand in January this year. Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of Hardware Product Marketing told MacCentral that the company expects to release a software update to make its hardware fully compliant with the final specification.

Formal approval gives the go ahead for the W-Fi Alliance to begin stamping 802.11g products with its Wi-Fi Certified label. Wi-Fi Alliance certification ensures that products claiming to be 802.11g compliant meet all the standard's requirements.

The IEEE has also released clarification on real-world performance of 802.11g networks. Although nominally data is transferred at a maximum rate of 54Mbps, in reality speeds peak at around 20Mbps. Nonetheless this is still some five times faster than 802.11b networks, where transfer rates peak at between 4 and 5Mbps. As we reported - Wi-Fi Alliance clears up AirPort speed conflicts - last month, the performance of mixed 802.11b and 802.11g networks is dependent upon the relative numbers of each device and the amount of traffic on the network. The greater the amount of data being uploaded to or downloaded from 802.11b devices, the slower overall network speeds will be.

Wi-Fi Alliance looks to wireless future

Author: Simon Aughton