Draft-N vs. Pre-N (802.11n)

I’ve noticed that there’s been a lot of discussion about the Draft-N and Pre-N wireless products. So I decided to do some research to help clarify this issue and found that Dell.com does not have much information on 802.11n so I’ve contacted those who write this information for Dell and they are working on it. But in the mean time I wanted to get some information to you about Draft-N and Pre-N.

The first thing I’ve noticed is that everyone thinks that these two are supposed to work together. The answer is not necessarily. Since the 802.11n standard has not been ratified there are different vendors making their product on two different 802.11n protocols and it is from these that the standard will eventually be ratified but in the mean time they may or may not work with each other. Look at the differences between Crossfire and SLI here you have two vendors ATI and nVidia working on the same concept but neither work with each other. But the good news is that 802.11n will eventually be ratified to one standard.

Wikipedia has an overall discussion of wireless technology and the various elements of wireless technology which is located at IEEE 802.11n Wireless Information. I know that some people don’t like Wikipedia but it is a good place to start and get some basic information.

This article Top 6 802.11n Wireless N Broadband Routers for Home written by Bradley Mitchell explains 6 of the different routers and their compatibility or lack thereof.

There are several vendors that are calling their 802.11n solution Draft-N. The following article written by Tim Higgins written on June 1, 2006 titled Draft 802.11n Revealed: Part 1 – The Real Story on Throughput vs. Range which discusses the Draft-N the vendors and how their product works.

Belkin calls their 802.11n Pre-N. The following article titled New Wi-Fi Nearly Doubles Speed by Yardena Arar explains the Belkin Pre-N product.

This link discusses the Ratification Process address how ratification will happen. The standard was scheduled to be ratified in mid to late 2007 but in an article at cNet.com by Marguerite Reardon titled New Wi-Fi standard delayed again reports that the final ratification might not be until early 2008.

The following article talks about purchase options called 802.11n: Buy Now or Wait?

These are only a few items that I found to help understand the 802.11n standard and I hope it helps my fellow users in their quest to understand the differences and difficulties with 802.11n products. I will encourage those that are interested to do a more detailed search in your favorite search engine for 802.11n, Draft-N, or Pre-N. You will see there is a lot of information on this new technology and the above links are only meant to be a starting place to help with understanding the new wireless standard.

There are many people here on the forum with varying opinions about the 802.11n products. The bottom line though is that 802.11n is new, it’s not finalized, but will eventually be ratified and it will be the way to go in the future.

I will continue to research this for you.