Well, the stars aligned, the political winds blew just right, and we have yet another wireless LAN standard proposal-802.11g. In a nutshell, .11g essentially implements the 5.2-GHz, OFDM technology of 802.11a in the 2.4 GHz band now occupied by 802.11b (and Bluetooth, and cordless phones, and microwave ovens, and . . .). So, what exactly is the point of this exercise? one wonders.

With 802.11a products now shipping from a number of vendors (and huge volumes expected next year), why all the fuss about the 2.4 band? For years we've suffered the interference and limited bandwidth of this "kitchen-sink" territory. We used it because it was better than 902 MHz, which today sees little utility in data communications. But 5.2 GHz is almost the promised land, with lots more spectrum and lots less interference. Prices of .11a products will approach the terrific affordability of .11b within a few months. So why beat what many see as a dead horse?

The chief argument by the proponents of .11g is range-and, indeed, signals at 2.4 GHz propagate much better than those at 5.2 GHz. The argument is that a single access point can cover a lot more territory, saving on the cost of installation and ownership. True-except that this argument doesn't matter any more.

In the good old days, when access points cost $2,000, we did everything we could to stretch their coverage. And with throughput in the 1- to 2-Mbit/s range, more distance didn't really affect performance. Today, though, throughput is everything in the horizontal applications that are driving WLANs. And less range means more throughput, even at 2.4 GHz. Add in falling prices, and the economic argument for 2.4 GHz really falls apart in most applications.

It gets worse-including the two optional .11g modes-I count eight PHYs in 802.11. And I assume that higher-rate 802.11a extensions will add one or two more over the next year. Complexity does not breed growing markets-indeed, it gives buyers pause and often results in confusion rather than POs. How many PHYs do we need? How many radio standards do we need?

Don't get me wrong, .11g is a technical achievement. But will it help the WLAN industry to grow at a critical juncture? Major rollouts are poised to occur. The general office market sees the benefits of going wireless. But given that users now have another option, we may again have the indecision that marked WLANs before the initial 802.11 standard was approved.

Craig Mathias is an analyst with the Farpoint Group (Ashland, Mass.).

http://www.eetimes.com/