Consumer electronics devices to shift to 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, says study

August 13, 2007 – The rapid shift to the new 802.11n Wi-Fi standard will include consumer electronics as well as routers and gateways in coming years, according to a new study by ABI Research.

The research firm expects 802.11n to outpace other networking technologies due to demand for video entertainment delivered over high-speed networks around the home, and forecasts that there will be 216mn 802.11n chipsets being targeted towards consumer electronics devices by 2011.

“Many consumer electronics vendors see Wi-Fi as the primary way to get network-delivered content to their devices,” commented Research Director Michael Wolf.  “As consumers increasingly source video content on the Internet and look towards multi-room distribution, older Wi-Fi technologies don’t have the bandwidth to deliver this content, particularly over longer ranges.  802.11n, in particular 5 GHz solutions using 40 MHz-wide channels, will help alleviate these constraints.”

The expected move by laptop OEMs to make 802.11n standard in their high-end laptops, ABI Research expects this to have a natural pull-through effect on 802.11n-enabled home routers.  Consumer electronics firms are accordingly expected to integrate the new standard into their devices as the installed base of 802.11n gateways and routers grows.

“Competition will be fierce in the consumer electronics space, which is one of the largest growth segments for Wi-Fi chipsets,” said principal analyst Philip Solis.  “Well-established Wi-Fi semiconductor vendors such as Broadcom and Marvell will be competing against up-and-coming Wi-Fi chipset vendors concentrating on market niches – companies such as Metalink within the line-powered CE space, and Nanoradio within the portable CE space.”