[MLB-WIRELESS] {Spam?} 802.11preN hardware

[Chris Samuel]

On Thursday 14 December 2006 12:13 pm, Fenn Bailey wrote:

> G'day all,
>
> Just wondering if anyone had played much with any of the 802.11 Pre-N gear
> and what they've thought. I've had a couple of people tell me it's pretty
> amazing in terms of propegation/speeds/etc.

Not here, but this comment in Wikipedia about pre-N gear doesn't sound too 
hopeful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Pre-n_equipment

# After the announcement of the Draft 1.0 of 802.11n, many vendors
# announced "pre-n" transceivers and routers based upon that document. It has
# been reported, however, that these products can interfere with, and even
# disable, some current 802.11b and g wireless networks.[8] It is also
# uncertain whether products using draft versions of 802.11n will remain
# compatible with the finalized 802.11n standard.[9]

The report it references about crippling nearby b/g networks is:

http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/03/13/802_11n_backwards_compatibility_issues/

# Airgo Networks took the occasion of last Friday's vote by the IEEE 802.11n
# Taskgroup to proceed to the "letter ballot" phase of the standardization
# process, to go public with the developing standard's little secret. The firm
# claims that the "802.11n Draft 1.0 does not provide for interoperability
# with nearby legacy 802.11b/g networks".
#
# "Specifically, if 'Draft N' or 'N Ready' products are released to market
# based on Draft 1.0 of the standard, they will severely degrade - or even
# disable - nearby 802.11b and 802.11g networks," Airgo said.

This seems to be corroborated by this review on a pre-N system with an Airgo 
chipset.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/review_wpnt834/page10.html/

They had what they claimed at the time to be a firmware bug, but even once 
that was fixed Airgo claimed:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/review_wpnt834/page11.html/

# I should also note that Airgo told me that when it is working, it will take
# 5 to 10 minutes (!) to tune away from a neighboring WLAN that is detected
# after the RM240 completes its initial power-up sequence - if the RM240
# sees "lots of continuous traffic" in the neighbor.

Hmm..

-- 
 Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Melbourne, VIC

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