It’s official. The 802.11g protocol, which has been touted as God’s gift to 802.11b, received the final nod from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
The wireless local area network technology, which enjoyed approval in April, is based on the OFDM protocol and enhances the speed of 802.11b by up to four or five times. B offers 11 Megabits per second compared with g’s 54 Megabits per second.
Delay in ratifying the standards had held companies like Texas Instruments from shipping their products. However, a number of companies, including Broadcom Corp., Cisco Systems Inc., Linksys, Marvell Libertas, D-Link, NetGear and Intersil, have begun 802.11g shipments.
TI announced 13 customers for its TNETW1130 802.11g solution. Some of the customers are U.S. Robotics, Alpha Networks, Samsung and Z-Com.
“This approval signifies that Wi-Fi testing will soon begin to ensure that consumers can go to a store, purchase an 802.11g product and not worry about interoperability and 802.11b/g performance,” said Marisa Speziale, TI’s spokeswoman.
The standard is expected to enable enhanced voice, data, voice over Internet Protocol and video.
In a research note, Infonetics remarked that “several vendors have introduced 802.11g products that will likely have a dramatic market impact in 2003, and many vendors are already having success with 802.11a products.”
Industry is also looking to make a solution that ensures interoperability not only between b and g, but also with a. Atheros already has developed a solution for that need. A offers greater speed in the 5 GHz band.
The first quarter shows that the g market already has a lot of traction, as a note from Dell’ Oro Group indicated. “During the (first) quarter, the emergence of the 802.11g market more than offset traditional seasonal weakness, and despite not having a finalized standard, 802.11g products comprised 29 percent of [small office/home office] infrastructure revenues,” said the group.
In another development, the Wi-Fi Alliance appointed Frank Hanzlik, most recently vice president of marketing and product management at Mobilian, as its managing director.
“Although much has been accomplished to date, the number of Alliance initiatives continues to increase. To address this, the alliance board of directors recognized that it would need additional senior management leadership,” said Dennis Eaton, chairman of the Alliance.
