"At the very end of an open field with no interference, where you could get 1Mbit/sec. with "g" equipment, you'll net 14Mbit/sec. to 16Mbit/sec. with "n" equipment," reports Ashish Gupta, an Intel product manager.

What's in it for business users?

Consumers are increasingly buying equipment based on draft versions of 802.11n. However, few businesses will deploy 802.11n products until the standard is fully ratified and business-focused vendors such as Cisco Systems Inc. offer products based on the ratified standard. When that happens, however, the role of wireless networking is expected to significantly increase in corporate settings.

Wireless networking in many companies often fills specific niches, such as providing networking in conference rooms, lunch rooms or in temporary or under-construction office space. That lack of full deployment of wireless is understandable given that Ethernet provides greater reliability and speeds (theoretical maximums of 100Mbit/sec.) and is switched, while wireless LANs offer slower speeds and the bandwidth is shared. The new 802.11n technology will solve the throughput problem for business users, opening the way to far more applications, such as wireless voice over IP and more videoconferencing.

And what about consumers?

The increased range of 802.11n will mean fewer "dead spots" in homes served by a single Wi-Fi router. It also will open the way to high-bandwidth applications such as streaming video from, say, desktop computers that store video to Wi-Fi-enabled televisions. The new standard will also be more reliable for voice-over-IP and, in general, for multiple users doing multiple things over the network.

Does the new standard have new security capabilities?

No. While Wi-Fi once was considered quite insecure, most current-generation products now support Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) and WPA 2 for encryption and authentication, which provide strong protection for wireless networks.

However, the Wi-Fi Alliance, the trade organization for Wi-Fi vendors, is instituting a specification aimed at making security easier to deploy by home users. The program, called Wi-Fi Protected Setup, enables setup of WPA or WPA 2 simply by pushing buttons or entering personal identification numbers. This program is not part of the 802.11n standard, but equipment vendors are starting to deploy it just as Draft 2 Wi-Fi products are becoming common.

Why is ratification of 802.11n taking so long?

The 802.11n standard is being developed by a working group of the IEEE. Under the best of circumstances, ratifying an important new standard is an excruciatingly slow, multiyear process, because working groups address the smallest nuances of the standards and discuss different approaches and then sort it all out and vote.