As is the case with any industry where technology is still relatively new, companies are always trying to get the leg up on the competition by having their technology become the industry standard. The wireless industry has been in a battle for a couple of years over what the newest high-speed Wi-Fi wireless Internet connection should be for computers and other portable devices.

Finally, industry leaders have come together to form the Enhanced Wireless Consortium, which includes such giants as Broadcom, Intel, Cisco, Sony and Toshiba. The companies are looking to ratify the standard by 2006 so they can move forward and develop products because the money isn’t in making the standards, it’s making the products that use the standards.

This timeframe puts them 1 year ahead of the IEEE timeframe which was scheduled to release the standard in 2007.

The new Wi-Fi standard is known as 802.11n and follows the 802.11a, b and g standards. The n-version is billed to be two to 10 times faster than current Wi-Fi technologies and will enable high-quality wireless video transmission in office and home networks.

I’m not really concerned about speed issues, but I would definitely love to see an increase in range of these wireless signals. I have always found G speeds to be sufficient, but am never happy with their range. Let’s hope that the new standard addresses this issue.

– via Reuters