A consortium of companies collaborating under the moniker “WWiSE” today announced their intended submission of a complete joint proposal to the IEEE 802.11 Task Group N (TGn), which is chartered with developing a next-generation WiFi standard capable of sustaining data throughput in excess of 100 Mbps.
The technology foundation is based on MIMO-OFDM. IEEE 802.11n will be an especially important standard in the WLAN market as it will build upon and extend the capabilities for the vast number of users currently enjoying the benefits of WiFi connectivity.
Companies within the WWiSE consortium that contributed to the proposal are Airgo Networks, Bermai, Broadcom, Conexant Systems, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.
“WWiSE” stands for worldwide spectrum efficiency, a key element for all proposals submitted to Task Group N. As such, the WWiSE proposal was developed with global deployment and backwards compatibility with all other WiFi standards as its principal and mandatory requirements.
Additional considerations included data-rate compliance with worldwide regulatory requirements in important regional markets such as Japan. The proposal also offers a royalty-free license option from the WWiSE companies. Such license options are designed to facilitate the worldwide deployment of 802.11n technology.
The WWiSE proposal builds on the existing 20-MHz channel format of the tens of millions of WiFi devices already in use. This approach ensures support for the existing worldwide installed base, while improving the performance of WiFi networks within the designated RF spectrum.