IEEE 802.11n-2009 - Wi-Fi Alliance

Wi-Fi Alliance

As of mid-2007, the Wi-Fi Alliance started certifying products based on IEEE 802.11n draft 2.0. This certification program established a set of features and a level of interoperability across vendors supporting those features, thus providing one definition of 'draft n'. The baseline certification covers both 20 MHz and 40 MHz wide channels, and up to two spatial streams, for maximum throughputs of 144.4 Mbit/s for 20 MHz and 300 Mbit/s for 40 MHz (with short guard interval). A number of vendors in both the consumer and enterprise spaces have built products that have achieved this certification. The Wi-Fi Alliance certification program subsumed the previous industry consortium efforts to define 802.11n, such as the now dormant Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC). The Alliance has upgraded its suite of compatibility tests for some enhancements that were finalized after draft 2.0. Furthermore, it has affirmed that all draft-n certified products remain compatible with the products conforming to the final standards. The Wi-Fi Alliance is investigating further work on certification of additional features of 802.11n not covered by the baseline certification, including higher numbers of spatial streams (3 or 4), Greenfield Format, PSMP, implicit and explicit beamforming and space-time block coding.