What are the different flavours of Wi-Fi?
Wi-Fi standards are set by theInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE, and theWi-Fi Alliance, an industry group responsible for interoperability testing. So far they have finalised and approved three standards: 802.11a, 802.11b and 802.11g.802.11n is a proposed specification that will become a Wi-Fi standard once it’s finalised by the IEEE and the Wi-Fi Alliance completes its interoperability testing. Groups have submitted various 802.11n proposals to the IEEE, but are still debating what to include in the standard. It isn’t expected to be completed until late 2006, with products based on the standard coming out in early 2007.Some companies are also touting a wireless-networking technology known as MIMO. This is not technically a variety of Wi-Fi, or even an industry standard. Rather, it is the technology that’s expected to form the basis of 802.11n.
