MIMO 4x4 with TxBF Has Arrived - Dang That Was Fast!
Yep, my good friend Dilip Advani (CWNE #43) pointed this out to me recently. Can you believe it? Before long, we'll have data rates hitting 600 Mbps, with throughputs that will still be under 100 Mbps. :) We'll have Beamforming, which will change how we wrestle with co-channel interference. Beamforming will give us higher throughput at range and will stabilize our RF environment significantly. This is GREAT news indeed!
My advice to IT Managers: When you see this stuff hit the market with a Wi-Fi Alliance sticker on it, find any excuse possible to throw 802.11a/b/g gear out the window (or sell it on eBay). Obviously these new 802.11n chipsets will support 802.11r/k when the Wi-Fi Alliance version is released as "Voice-Enterprise", and likely whatever new standards are released for the next 3-4 years as well.
How fast will vendors adopt these new chipsets? Unknown. You know, it's alot like 802.11r/k in fact - it'll all depend on the Wi-Fi Alliance's willingness to build and implement a test plan. A year? Two? The standard is already in place, but that seems to matter very little, which is a bit irritating (though I certainly understand why things are the way they are). I, like most everyone else, want everything now. ;)