The 802.11s group on mesh networking will see its first proposals this week: The IEEE group meeting is the first time the group will have formal proposal presentations, of which there are 15. This isn't unusual in the very early stages. The presentation provides companies and individuals more information about approaches. Often, proposals consolidate quickly into voting bloc alliances, which can then play out into quick standards agreement, drafting, and ratification, or, more likely, delay tactics and gamesmanship that stalls a standard from proceeding for years at a time while the market realities play out.
Two groups have already formed: the Wi-Mesh Alliance, led by Nortel, and SEEMesh with Intel, TI, Nokia, Motorola, and NTT DoCoMo as some of the members. Intel has already shown in 802.15.3a (the UWB-based personal area networking standard) that mere industry dominance with major players doesn't result in an easy standards win because of the 75 percent individual member voting threshold used in the IEEE to go from accepted proposal to accepted draft.
There's a great deal of additional background in Wi-Fi Planet's story by Eric Griffith on the standards meeting.