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A long-awaited standard for wireless LANs that offers more carrying capacity than the current IEEE 802.11b specification while using the same frequencies has won final approval.

The new standard, 802.11g, lays out the ground rules for wireless LAN gear that is capable of at least 24 megabits per second and up to 54 mbps, while remaining backward compatible with existing 802.11b gear that runs at a maximum 11 mbps. Both standards use radio spectrum in the range of 2.4 GHz. Another standard, 802.11a, defines 54 mbps gear in the 5-GHz range.

Many vendors have already shipped equipment based on drafts of the standard for months, and have said they will make those products meet the final specification through free firmware downloads. The draft products already are driving the growth of the WLAN business, which has been one of the few bright spots in a gloomy technology industry in recent years, according to market research company Dell'Oro Group.

Three-Year Project

The Standards Board of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers approved the new specification at a meeting Thursday. The standardization process took just over three years.

Working out the details took about as long for 802.11g as it did for the other two 802.11 versions, but considering how the 802.11 Working Group has grown since 802.11b was approved in 1999, that's relatively quick work, says Matthew Shoemake, chair of the 802.11g task group and director of advanced technologies in Texas Instruments' WLAN business unit.

"The number of voting members we have now is somewhere near six [to] eight times the number of voting members we had when we were working on [11a and 11b]," Shoemake says. The group now has 397 members.

Key events in the development process included a compromise between proposals by two component makers, Texas Instruments and Intersil, and a rule change by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC now allows use of a technology called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing in the 2.4-GHz range.

The task group settled on a so-called pure OFDM technology and voted to include the competing OFDM proposals, which proponents said can offer better performance and efficiency under certain circumstances as optional capabilities, Shoemake says.

Wi-Fi Alliance to Certify

Although products have to provide only a maximum 24-mbps carrying capacity to meet 802.11g's speed requirements, the industry group Wi-Fi Alliance will require support for 54-mbps performance for its own 2.4-GHz high-speed label. Shoemake says he is not aware of any current gear or planned standard products that aren't built for 54-mbps performance.

The 802.11 Working Group will mark Thursday's landmark vote the same way it has the other major standards approvals, Shoemake says. The celebration is set for the group's next meeting, in San Francisco next month.

"802.11 has a ritual whenever we approve a new amendment to our standard.... We actually pop champagne and take a group photo," Shoemake says.

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