Windows Phone Thoughts: Next-Gen Wireless Roundup: 802.11n Progress Update & Samsung's 4G Demo

The 802.11n soap-opera continues. The Wi-Fi Alliance has decided to move forward with a two-phase approval process for 802.11n devices despite the fact that IEEE still hasn't signed-off on a final standard. In the initial phase of approval, the Wi-Fi Alliance would certify equipment against certain parts of the draft standard conjectured to remain unchanged. The second phase would certify devices based on the final approved standard, which is now expected in April 2008. Despite the lack of IEEE progress, most vendors and analysts appear to be in favor of this excelerated-market approach. Let's just hope they get that initial phase right or else many early-adopters could be stuck with non-compliant equipment.

In other news, Samsung demonstrated 4G technology that would support mobile data rates of 100 MBps and fixed data rates exceeding 1 GBps. The demonstration showed a movie being downloaded in five seconds and 100 songs being downloaded in a little over two seconds. However, as Ars Technica points out, it'll likely be quite some time before we see 4G released anywhere; 2G and 3G networks are still a "work-in-progress" in many areas. BetaNews goes one step further in harvesting the question of whether 4G is really needed as many analysts have already considered the 3G rollout to have been a failure overall. Your thoughts?