802.11n: What can we really expect?

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Second, IT professionals in charge of Wi-Fi support in their organisations can't depend on the standard itself to solve all their wireless connectivity headaches. Each of the 802.11x process letters - b, g etc - refer to new parts of the spectrum, incidentally, so it's not like a later letter is automatically a guide to better/superior performance in the field - or rather, the Dilbert cubicle environment most organisations will in reality be offering wireless access to staff.

"The problem is that a lot of that foam and other soft office furnishings absorb the radio waves," says Longbottom. "To get the best performance specs out of 'n' you'll need as few solid walls as possible but lots of things for the waves to bounce off. So you can't know without testing how many stations you'll need. The only real way to sort that out is to use a sniffer tool to look at your network and see what sort of speeds you can realistically get to in your actual environment."

So 802.11n is a definite step in the right direction - but be realistic in terms of setting your user expectations, is the message.

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