Vendors Ramp Up As 802.11G Moves Toward Ratification

Wireless vendors and chip makers are firming up market positions as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers moves its final draft of the 802.11g standard toward ratification.

Brian Mathews, chairman of the IEEE's Publicity Committee, said it appears all open issues have been addressed and the path is clear to submit the final version for ratification on June 12. Ratification is significant because the marketplace is littered with prestandard products that are incompatible with the final product, Mathews said.

Wireless vendor Proxim, Sunnyvale, Calif., plans to ship its family of enterprise 802.11g-ready products based on the final draft standard beginning June 2. The products include AP-600g access points for small and midsize businesses, AP-2000s with 802.11g radios for large enterprises and hot spots, and a variety of client cards for laptops and PCI cards for desktops.

The rush to market is driven by enthusiasm about 802.11g, which promises to extend data rates to a projected 54 Mbps from 11 Mbps.

"We believe when the standard is ratified, we will be able to call [Proxim's 802.11g products] compliant," Lucas said. "Products out there now are clearly prestandard and don't have the enterprise-class qualities of this product line, including security capabilities, improved throughput performance in a mixed [802.11]b/g environment and power over Ethernet support."

Meanwhile, competing wireless vendors such as Linksys (which is in the midst of being acquired by Cisco Systems), Netgear and D-Link Systems moved to market earlier this year with prestandard dual-band 802.11a/g WLAN products in a bid to corner early solution provider and consumer interest in faster, more secure wireless access. These vendors said all prestandard products can be easily upgraded to the final standard with driver, software or firmware updates.

The rush to market is being driven by enthusiasm about the 802.11g standard, which promises to extend data rates to a projected 54 Mbps from 11 Mbps for the current, popular 802.11b, while maintaining backward compatibility.

Although some estimates place the actual throughput connection speeds much lower,at about 20 Mbps in a crowded 2.4GHz frequency,the new standard is an improvement from 802.11b and a more affordable alternative to 802.11a.

Some wireless solution providers, such as Framingham, Mass.-based Horizon Computer, have reported successful sales and deployments of early 802.11g products, while others are holding back until full ratification.

"It certainly appears to be a sound technology and one we would support," said Jack Davis, president and CEO of Sideband Systems, Beverly, Mass. "We're not advising our customers to jump on any bandwagon unless it has full ratification of whomever is setting a particular standard,in this case, the IEEE."

While Sideband has not yet completed any 802.11g installments, there is interest from customers, Davis said. "The vast majority of the WLANs we have engineered and deployed have been [802.11]b," he said. "Customers are certainly looking at it [802.11g] because it allows a nice migration from [802.11]b, so it's a benefit for people that already have a [802.11]b infrastructure."

Bill Carney, director of market and business development for Texas Instruments' Wireless Networking Business Unit, Dallas, said the company worked with customers on an early version product but now is ramping up its 802.11 a/b/g solution, the TNETW1130 single-chip Media Access Controller and baseband processor.

For its part, Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom took one of the early bets in shipping prestandard 802.11g products. Jeff Abramowitz, senior director for Broadcom's WLAN product line, said Broadcom can safely assure customers that its prestandard technologies are capable of simple software upgrades.

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