New wireless networking equipment promises big speed and coverage improvements. But man tests show that the new products have drawbacks and that older ones are still the best performers.
“twelve times the speed!” “Four times the range!” “Faster than wired!” Like barkers at a carnival, home-network equipment vendors are touting the revolutionary performance of the latest and greatest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11n. And yes, its promise is great: 802.11n networks should enable superior range and data speeds of up to 270 megabits per second (and eventually 600 mbps). Although (as with previous Wi-Fi standards) real-world performance won’t be nearly as fast, 802.11n products should deliver more than enough throughput and range to support high-quality video streaming and Voice-over-IP phone service, graphics-intensive online games, and other bandwidth-hogging goodies throughout a typical home. We can hardly wait to buy the gear. Problem is, that’s not what the vendors are selling.
Instead of products based on a final standard which should appear by early 2008 and will be Wi-Fi Alliance certified for interoperability what we have now is a flood of “draft” 802.11n products based on a preliminary and incomplete version of the standard. These products might be but are not guaranteed to be firmware upgradable to the final spec.
Nokia has started testing in Finland a technology where people can make calls seamlessly between Wi-Fi and phone network using pilot Nokia phones. When these users are within range of a Wi-Fi network, the call would be routed as a VOIP call and the user moves out of range, the call will move seamlessly to a GSM phone network.