According to Wired's website, the new standard for Wi-Fi is near completion and offering up to 600mbps promises lightning fast speeds along with a great deal of other bells and whistles: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/08/wi-fi-standard/

Around half a decades work has gone into this development, and the new standard '802.11n' is due to be released upon the world by September, nice and early for the Christmas rush. Often referred to as 'Wireless N' the new standard could offer not only the ability for a 600mbps transfer rate, but also will allow the ability of up to four simultaneous streams of high definition video, voice and data in households.

This may seem all numbers and gibberish, so we'll put it into perspective; the current standard is '802.11g' which only offers speeds up to 54mbps, great for most people but for those who have higher expectations the new standard is something which will be welcomed. For a few years now, manufacturers of networking technology have been developing products based on a draft version of the standard, but be warned these often only contain two or three channels to transfer data on and have substantial caps on the 600mbps which the new standard can provide.

One of the most important additions to the new 802.11n standard is the addition of a capability abbreviated to MIMO. Standing for Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output, it allows for multiple antennas to resolve information at a much faster pace than the 802.11g standard.

"So far we have had products based on the version of 802.11n that is fairly basic," says Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director for the W-Fi alliance. "Now we are likely to see more devices that have all the bells and whistles in place."

According to one of Wired's sources, the difference will certainly have a great impact upon the home network and suggests that the idea of this technology may have bread out of the need to stream video in double quick time, without having to wait: "Speed is everything and videos are the main driver for this technology, when you are home you want to get to YouTube fast and watch video and have a phone connection and surf."

"At the least we can get six times the speed of the current 802.11g standard, that means we can transmit high definition video across multiple rooms in a pretty large house with just one access point."
Mike Concannon, senior VP, Qualcomm.

(NeoWin)