Netgear products get IEEE certification

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Netgear announced that all its wireless products based on the Draft 802.11n will comply to the new IEEE standard specification. This has come in effect ever since IEEE Standards Board had officially approved the IEEE 802.11N as a standard with significantly improved data rates and ranges for wireless LAN communications.

Besides this certification, all Netgear products that have also achieved Draft 11n certification from the Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA). This will carry Wi-Fi certified compliant logo.

Expressing his satisfaction, Atul Jain, country manager, Netgear, India and SAARC said, “It is a great achievement for us as IEEE Standards Board has officially recognized Netgear's innovations. I am happy that there will be a lot of interoperability along with the competition platform which will bring a lot of value to the customers. All these certifications actually endorse the fact that how serious we are about the quality improvement and differentiation.”

Finalization of the new wireless networking standard, which is capable of delivering throughput speeds up to 300 megabits per second (and even higher), took exactly seven years from the day it was conceived, and six years from the first draft version. The standard has been through a dozen or so draft versions.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, all existing Wi-Fi Certified Draft N wireless products will still work with the final standard.

The company claims that Netgear 802.11n offers much higher speeds than the previous, already-ratified 802.11g, which caps at only 54Mbps. Due to the compelling higher speed, most wireless vendors have been offering 802.11n-based (also known as Wireless-N) products during the past six years and calling them Draft N products.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, most, if not all, of the existing equipment can be upgraded to the final specification via a firmware update. Finally, all future wireless networking products will be compatible with today's products that have been Wi-Fi-certified.