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New Wi-Fi Coming as Standards Mature

The recent approvals of IEEE 802.11n and 802.11w standards marked the start of a wave of Wi-Fi innovation, experts told us. Additional specifications under development would enable personal area Wi-Fi, peer-to-peer communications and cooperation with networks using other technologies, they said.

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802.11n would make possible a range of high data rates, which could be adapted to various functions and devices, said Matthew Gast, chair of the Wi-Fi Alliance’s 802.11 task group and chief strategist at Trapeze Networks. With throughput of more than 100 Mbps, 11n might replace wired office networks with wireless ones, saving money, said Michael Tennefoss, Aruba Networks head of strategic planning. It would also allow the transmission of multiple streams over a channel, increasing the efficiency of spectrum, Gast said. But the specification is just the first use of MIMO -- multiple-input and multiple-output -- in Wi-Fi, he said, saying many technologies could be borrowed from other types of radio communications to improve Wi-Fi use. More of 802.11n’s optional performance features will appear in radio chips and be used in wireless clients and access points to make signals more resilient, consistent and reliable, said Tennefoss.

Wireless management frames are becoming more important because they aren’t just messages that are used for network operations, Gast said. Many fast roaming and network management messages are in management frames, too, and protecting them could protect the 802.11 management protocol to make sure that operations run more smoothly, without interruption by attacks, he said. The 802.11w standard was designed specifically for protection of 802.11 management frames, he said.

Standards groups are working on the 802.11u and 802.11v amendments, which are expected to be completed in June and July, Gast said. The 11v standard could improve Wi-Fi management by adding counters for statistics gathering, along with power management to improve battery life and by improving support for location data, he said. The 11u standard will include features that improve interactions with external networks, covering the cases where a user is not pre-authorized, he said. Meanwhile, access points will become enablers of peer-to-peer connections: The alliance working on a Wi-Fi Direct project which enable Wi-Fi devices to connect to one another without joining a traditional home, office or hotspot network, said Sarah Morris, a manager at the organization. The specification is for consumer electronics and enterprise applications, she said. The alliance will begin certifying devices for the Wi-Fi Direct designation in 2010.

A trend is to devices tailored to specific tasks, meaning more devices on the network, Gast said. Morris expects growth in devices connecting vertical markets like health care, energy and transportation. There could be significant opportunities in consumer electronics, too, she said.