The Wi-Fi Alliance plans to certify interoperability of draft-802.11n Wi-Fi products that include baseline features from the developing IEEE 802.11n standard in the first half of 2007. Later on, potentially in 2008, the alliance will launch a program that will ensure that draft-spec and final-spec 802.11n are fully compatible.

Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry organization that connects producers of various network technologies and equipment, said on Tuesday that it would kick off a validation process for equipment that is made according to draft-802.11n standard so to avoid incompatibilities between various products – in the first phase of 802.11n compatibility initiative – and eventually – during the second phase of the program – ensure that draft-802.11n devices will be compatible with final 802.11n spec.

The 802.11n standard promises to increase transfer speed of wireless networks to about 600Mb/s while maintaining compatibility with currently deployed 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi networks. There were two groups that proposed 802.11n standards to IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers): World-Wide Spectrum Efficiency (WWiSE) group and Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC) which standards were not completely compatible between each other. Recently IEEE approved EWC-proposed 802.11n draft standard effectively splitting the developers of the 802.11n into two camps, one of which can start making equipment now and another should wait till the final standard approval.

The IEEE recently updated its estimated timeline for ratification of a full 802.11n standard, and is now targeting the first quarter of 2008 for final approval. However, Wi-Fi products implementing features from the draft specification are in the market now, and analysts forecast that tens of millions of pre-standard devices will ship in 2007, which requires manufacturers of such equipment to ensure their interoperability.

“This two-phase approach balances our longstanding commitment to standards-based technology with the current market need for product interoperability certification,” said Wi-Fi Alliance Managing Director Frank Hanzlik. “While we are committed to supporting a full 802.11n standard when it is available, pre-standard products are reaching a level of maturity and there is enough market uptake that a certification program makes sense for the industry.”

Although the much-heralded IEEE 802.11n WLAN standard is probably a good year away from formal ratification, end-products based on 802.11n draft 1.0 of the standard were released from a handful of vendors in Q2 2006. Approximately 300 thousand total 802.11n draft 1.0 routers, clients and access points shipped out from home and SMB networking specialists Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, Buffalo and Belkin. Even though 300 thousand is not a lot, next year the volumes are going to increase, especially if Intel Corp.’s next-generation mobile platform code-named Santa Rosa will support draft-802.11n standard.