Beware of 802.11n 'marketing rhetoric'

Companies should be wary of adopting wireless networking equipment that vendors "prematurely" claim meets the draft compliance requirements of the forthcoming 802.11n networking specification.

Gartner has warned that this specification may not be ratified until 2007 and urges companies not to rush into purchasing products that purport to comply with the proposed standard.

"The 802.11n standard is on track to be ratified. However, given that the IEEE does not believe the ratification will take place until 2007, and that specification modifications might still be approved that may not be implemented in current offerings, Gartner believes vendors that market draft compliance are misleading prospects, even if they articulate what such compliance means in other documentation," a briefing from Gartner analysts Ken Dulaney and Rachna Ahlawat advised.

The analyst firm said that many of its clients believe that 802.11n "written on the package" suggests to them that the product they are purchasing will one day be compliant with 802.11n.

Unfortunately, when some vendors made similar claims in their marketing regarding the earlier 802.11g standard, that did not always turn out to be the case.

"With the approval of 802.11n likely to occur quite far into the future, we expect material changes that are likely to require upgrades," said Gartner.

"Vendors are often unwilling to provide unconditional guarantees that upgrades will be available, or that, once available, they will work on the version of the product their customers have purchased.

"Gartner believes that current statements regarding 802.11n compliance are simply inflated marketing rhetoric.

"Such claims are also frequently unnecessary, since many small and midsize businesses - the target business audience for these products - could benefit from the features included within these offerings, even apart from their alleged 802.11n compliance."

Gartner predicted that, when 802.11n is ultimately approved, it should provide significant range and speed improvements, permitting more organisations to use wireless technology for mainstream applications.

However, the analyst firm went on to caution that, with the exception of specialised short-term needs, interoperability through standards compliance must not suffer in return.

"In the case of 802.11n, you should wait until the standard is ratified and Wi-Fi certification is implemented. If you are evaluating wireless Lan products advertised to support any version of draft 802.11n, ignore this labelling. Look at the product features as stand-alone capabilities without any guarantee of interoperability with any other 802.11n products," Gartner advised.