EWC Consortium for new 802.11n WiFi standard

Enhanced Wireless Consortium for new 802.11n WiFi standard

Twenty-seven Wi-Fi industry players formed a coalition to accelerate the IEEE 802.11n standard development process (not targeted before 2007) and promote a technology specification for next-generation WLAN products. The new Enhanced Wireless Consortium move has raised concerns about dual specifications that could be un-compatible and confuse the market, and about heavyweight members (namely Intel, Broadcom, Atheros and Marvell ) that account for 80% of sales of Wi-Fi chips. The group insists that they are trying to bring technology benefits to consumers, not to target competitors. De facto, small players in the market are ousted from defining the future standard, except if a compromise between competing standards is made.