October 1st, 2009
Wi-Fi Alliance begins product testing; unveils new logo
The Wi-Fi Alliance has begun product testing for its Wi-Fi Certified N program, updating its two-year-old 802.11n draft 2.0 program. Along with it comes a colorful new logo, taglines and labeling info.
The updated program adds testing for some popular optional features now more widely available in Wi-Fi equipment.
Those include:
- Test support for simultaneous transmission of up to three spatial streams
- Packet aggregation (A-MPDU), to make data transfers more efficient
- Space-time Block Coding (STBC), a multiple-antenna encoding technique to improve reliability in some environments
- Channel coexistence measures for “good neighbor” behavior when using 40 MHz operation in the 2.4 GHz band
Along with canning the word “draft,” devices can now be designated “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED dual-stream n” or “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED multi-stream n” to indicate that they have passed tests for specific performance-enhancing features.
Here’s who gets the shiny new accreditation first:
- Atheros XSPAN Dual-band 2.4/5GHz PCIe MiniCard for Computing Designs, Full MIMO Configuration
- Atheros XSPAN Dual-band, Dual-concurrent 2.4/5GHz, Gigabit Reference Platform for AP/Routers, Full MIMO configuration
- Broadcom Intensifi Dual-Band 802.11n Client Reference Design
- Broadcom Intensifi XLR Dual-Band 802.11n Router Reference Design
- Intel Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300
- Marvell SmartTM Wi-Fi 802.11n 3×3 450 Mbps Dual-Band Access Point
- Ralink 3×3 AP
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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