Intel Group Pitches Broadband WLAN, Opposes WWise

TGn Sync, a coalition of more than a dozen companies that includes Intel Corp. Cisco and Nokia among its members, has submitted a proposal for a next-generation wireless LAN standard to the IEEE 802.11 Task Group N (TGn).

As a result the great and the good of electronics and semiconductor industries are now drawn up in two conflicting camps. The WWise consortium, including Broadcom Corp., Conexant Systems Inc., STMicroelectronics NV and Texas Instruments Inc. announced their submission of a proposed broadband wireless standard achieving up to 540-Mbit/s last Thursday (Aug. 17).

The rival TGn Sync coalition is proposing a method using two antennas to deliver data rates up to 243-Mbit/s that it claims could scale to over 600 Mbit/s. In the TGn Sync camp are: Agere Systems Inc., Atheros Communications Inc. Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp., Marvell Semiconductor Inc., Nokia Corp., Nortel Networks Corp., Royal Philips Electronics N.V., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd., Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.

The proposal also uses adaptive radio techniques to ensure that wireless products can adjust to the planned expansion of unlicensed and licensed spectrum in China, Japan, South Korea, North America, the European Union (EU), and other regions.

The TGn Sync proposal will be presented at the next IEEE 802.11 meeting from September 13-17 in Berlin. The first draft of the 802.11n specification is scheduled to be completed in mid-2005 with its final ratification expected in late 2006 to early 2007.