First Draft of 802.11n Spec Rejected

A draft version of the proposed 802.11n wireless networking standard failed to pass Tuesday, leading some to criticize "pre-802.11n" products that have begun to flood the market. Only 46 percent of voters approved the draft, far short of the 75 percent needed for ratification.

It should be noted, however, that the group did not expect the draft to pass on first vote; typically it will take several revisions before the necessary majority approves a draft. In fact, an official roadmap does not predict final ratification until September of next year.

Regardless, at least one of the 802.11n equipment manufacturers, Airgo, criticized companies like Belkin, D-Link, Linksys, and Netgear, which have all have marketed pre-802.11 compliant products.

"Today's outcome proves that Draft 1.0 was not as stable as some in the industry would have us believe," the company's CEO Greg Raleigh said. "It calls into question the validity of so-called 'draft n' products. Airgo will continue to pursue its strategy of waiting until a more mature, stable draft is established before introducing products that comply."

Airgo itself has built chips based on the draft standard, which power products from Belkin and others. It said the vote was a defeat, but brought to light several deficiencies. Arigo says the current 802.11n proposal has issues with backwards compatibility and interoperability.

It cited these issues as a reason why it backed off calling the chips compliant, and focused on compatibility with the MIMO antenna technology instead.

Other manufacturers were more optimistic, including supporter Broadcom. The company said did not expect major changes to the draft, and that ratification was not too far away.