Wireless...Here to replace Wires? 802.11n is here to stay

Today has been a fruitful day, even with the more than usual daily hub bub taking place, I managed to take some time out of the day to do some research on wireless technologies. Yeah father, mother, aunty, uncle and even the neighbors dog has a wireless network running. Most of them a secured now a days but there are still the odd few that still believe in charity and leave their wireless networks unsecured ala Starbucks. Kudo's to you charitable people.

Well everyone has heard about the present 802.11 standards, which includes the "b" , "a" and "g" standards. The latest and greatest that will soon hit our doorsteps will be the 802.11n standard which will provide a theoretical throughput of, get ready for this...300 to 400mbps. To put this figure into perspective, the normal desktop at the office is connected to the network at only 100mbps, and the present fastest wireless technology is based on the "g" and "a" standards which clock in at 54mbps, heck most enterprise switches are connected to the network core with 100mbps ethernet uplinks.

Well what does this bode for us mere mortals? Well....

1. You can probably drop by the shops to bag yourself one of these babies soon (3Com AirConnect's) and start running your own small Video Streaming Service to your neighbors and local community.

(The PCI NIC's for Desktop PC's and USB Adapters are ready for shipping)


(802.11n Access Points)

2. It will just be a matter of time before someone fabricates a directional antenna for these babies and there you go, long range wide area networks at ethernet speeds. It would probably not replace the expensive WAN solution offerings on the market now but heck for those low budget operations its worth the idea.

(DIY Directional Antenna made from a can of Pringles)

(One of the many Directional Antenna's from Cisco)

Wireless is here to stay and with the optimizations put into the 802.11n standard such as MIMO, Channel Bonding and MAC Optimization it pushing the bandwidth threshold ever higher. The only thing we need now is a better ISP....at least for us poor souls in Malaysia.