802.11n chugs along

Now is not a bad time for organizations to deploy or start planning to migrate to 802.11n--the new standard for Wi-Fi technology, according to industry players.

Robin Simpson, research director at Gartner, told ZDNet Asia that although the industry is still awaiting 802.11n to be ratified as a standard by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Wi-Fi Alliance has "a certification process in place that will certify compliance with 802.11n in Draft 2.0".

"The vendors that are claiming that certification guarantee that when the final certification [is in], they will provide the software upgrade free of charge," said Australia-based Simpson.

Simpson added that there is a "pretty good chance" that the current draft will be the certified standard. "Gartner has been saying it's ok to use the 802.11n standard provided it's certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance."

Rachna Ahlawat, vice president of strategic marketing at Meru Networks, added: "The Wi-Fi Alliance's approach here is similar to when it launched Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) prior to the approval of 802.11i for security.

"Eventually, the Wi-Fi Alliance synchronized its own certification with 802.11i through the release of WPA2, but provided WPA as an interim technology for use in advance of the final standard," said Ahlawat.

The benefits of 802.11n over the earlier Wi-Fi flavors, which include faster data throughput and better reliability, may be a draw for consumers and some enterprises, including a hotel in Thailand. Others, however, have reservations about deployments at the pre-certification stage.

Gartner's Simpson, however, said it "does make sense" for 802.11n to be deployed in the enterprise space. "One of the big difficulties with current Wi-Fi b/g is, it's very difficult to do the network design particularly in multi-storey buildings…the access points on one floor interfere with another." The way the technology works for 802.11n, avoids that problem, he said.

On the other hand, more notebooks outfitted with 802.11n chips are in the market. According to Meru Networks' Ahlawat, there are currently over two dozen 802.11n enterprise-grade notebooks in the market.

"Industry analysts predict that once Intel’s Santa Rosa becomes a standard chipset for laptops this summer then the majority of laptops will be shipped with 802.11n cards," said Ahlawat. "According to a report Gartner issued in January 2008, all laptops purchased should include draft 802.11n now."

Tom Koenig, Cisco's product manager for wireless in the Asia-Pacific region, noted that most of the major Wi-Fi chip providers are not selling 802.11a/b/g any more as they have moved to the new 802.11n chipset.

Koenig said: "The challenge for organizations today will therefore be to keep up with the growing demand of the wireless user. If the end-user has invested in 802.11n technology, he or she is going to expect to receive 802.11n performance so organizations will need to start planning today for the migration to 802.11n technology.

Citing market analyst In-Stat, Koenig said about 50 percent of Wi-Fi devices bought in 2008 will contain 802.11n technology, and by 2012, nearly all Wi-Fi devices will be based on this standard. "We believe the 802.11n penetration [via] laptops [within the enterprise] will grow very quickly through the natural refresh cycle. It’s likely that other Wi-Fi devices--[such as] dual-mode phones, PDAs and scanners--will take longer to get to market based on the current cost of the 802.11n chip," he explained.

In addition, organizations are not likely to "invest anymore in 802.11a/b/g access points today knowing that in the next 12 months the 802.11n standard will be near complete, Koenig pointed out. "If they are going to spend the money upgrading or expanding they want to do so knowing they will be able to support 802.11n.

"[And] because the 802.11n standard includes backward compatibility with 802.11a/b/g, organizations only risk the cost difference--around 25 percent--between buying 802.11a/b/g access points and buying 802.11n Draft 2.0 access points. This is a risk many organizations are willing to take, if not for the entire network; at least for the areas of their network they feel they need the additional performance," said Koenig.

Despite the benefits of 802.11n, it is "still early days" for the technology, said Gartner's Simpson. "Any conservative business would probably wait a while longer" to deploy 802.11n in its current form, although companies that are looking at deploying wireless technology for the first time would be likely to adopt it over the older flavors.

Bryan Wang, research director for connectivity at Springboard Research and country manager in China, noted that the delay in adoption would come from companies that are already comfortable with Wi-Fi.

"At this moment, there is no major push for them to adopt better but more expensive 802.11n technology, considering most of the 802.11g networks have just been deployed for less than two or three years," he said.