While "pre-N" products based on the 1.0 draft of 802.11n are available in stores today, the MIMO-based high-speed Wi-Fi standard the IEEE has delayed their 2.0 draft for at least six months. Now it's January 2007 at the earliest.

Network World reports that the 802.11 Working Group has 12,000 comments to go through. These were in response to the release of the 1.0 draft. Half have been addressed — many are simple editorial changes to the written spec with many duplicates.

So far, one sticking point continues to be how 802.11n should combine 20MHz channels into a single 40MHz channel, doubling throughput of the Wi-Fi signal.

The ballot next January would need backing by 75% of the task group members to be accepted, a critical step because it would signal that the draft has reached a level of stability that could unleash a new wave of radio chipsets and products based on the draft standard. Final ratification of the standard might not occur until early 2008, though typically it is very rare for any changes to be made during that last stage, says Network World.

Airgo has had the market to itself until this year, when both Broadcom and Atheros began shipping silicon based on the draft 11n document. By the end of the second quarter, Broadcom had already shipped 1 million chipsets. In the same period, Atheros, which doesn't cite unit shipments, said its draft 11n chipset accounted for 13% of its second quarter revenue.

"Draft 1.0 really can't be used to build interoperability around," says Airgo's De Vegt. Of course Airgo really doesn't have a Draft 1.0 chipset, unlike Broadcom and Atheros.

Read more at: http://dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5710&src=rss10.