Since there is still no industry-wide standard for high-speed 802.11n version of Wi-Fi, enterprises are reluctant to adopt the technology so that not to run into compatibility issues with various equipment. However, smaller businesses, such as retail, real estate, warehousing and transportation are among the SMB market segments that could prove fertile ground for adoption of 802.11n equipment.

“Small businesses tend to buy small numbers of devices and trade them in more frequently than large companies. They also tend to be far less knowledgeable about technology and standards than large companies with dedicated IT personnel. The result is that small businesses are likely to buy 802.11n products while they are in draft status and deploy them immediately,” said ABI Research vice president Stan Schatt.

Several characteristics specific to the retail, real estate, warehouses and transportation vertical markets make them especially likely to benefit from 802.11n’s new abilities. Warehouse operators have had problems with interference using conventional 802.11g. 802.11n’s MIMO technology should reduce interference and make it possible to use Wi-Fi-based RTLS software.

Retail SMB establishments could benefit from the greater coverage offered by 802.11n; and real estate, increasingly using Wi-Fi to transmit graphic images of homes, will very likely add video applications as soon as they become practical. Deploying 802.11n will provide enough bandwidth to handle these tasks.

ABI Research said that there are millions small businesses that could deploy 802.11n networks and benefit from it.

According to ABI Research, when computers are updated, the new models will include 802.11n as a standard built-in feature, which will catalyze owners to deploy Wi-Fi 802.11n networks.  

Tags: Wi-Fi, 802.11n