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WiFi 5 - first 54 megabit wireless tests start at WECA

Incredibly, although Intel and Proxim are both shipping the newest WiFi 5 standard wireless LAN products, they are not yet certified as compatible. That will be fixed later this year.

The Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance (WECA) has begun certification testing for IEEE 802.11a wireless LAN products in its North American certification laboratory based in San Jose, California. That's two months after the first products actually started shipping. And it isn't even an attempt to ensure that 802.11a products which are dual-standard 11a and 11b, also meet compatibility requirements. That comes later.

First certified products are expected towards the end of this year.

Inevitably, this must raise questions of "what have they been doing?" The products have been available pre-launch, and the short answer is that WECA has been missing the starting whistle.

It's all very well to say, as WECA chairman Dennis Eaton did: "People have come to trust Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products because they work with each other, regardless of vendor. This is a standard that we need to maintain and it starts with the foundation of the Wi-Fi interoperability testing procedure." It's another thing to find products on the market for six months before WECA can certify them as compatible.

Eaton's explanation is that there was, for a long time, only one chip set: "One key testing foundation is WECA's fundamental belief that several different products need to be available, based on more than one chipset, to begin testing. Although IEEE 802.11a technology-based products have been available for a while, the requirement for multiple chipset providers has only recently been met."

The beginning of this testing is also particularly exciting because it moves WECA closer to dual band interoperability testing -- testing of products that support both standards, continued Eaton.

"There are currently over a dozen products in the first round of testing and they are based on three independent chipsets. As this is the first round of testing, it will take longer to finalize the test bed and refine the testing procedure than for subsequent rounds of testing. We expect the first certified products to be announced in the fourth quarter of this year," Eaton added.