The Joint Proposal (JP) team in the IEEE 802.11n high-throughput wireless task group has accepted the Enhanced Wireless Consortium (EWC) proposal: This is the penultimate step for the EWC proposal becoming the 802.11n standard. The EWC proposal was originally developed outside the main standards process by the four overall largest chipmakers, and which eventually included most parties in 802.11n.

Task Group N will produce a standard that uses multiple antennas and a host of other strategies to produce at least 100 Mbps of raw throughput, but more likely 200 Mbps. Net throughput, or real data transferred, will be much higher than the current 50% of raw data passed across.

The JP at the task group comprised members of two previously at-loggerheads proposals led (in the least nuanced way I can put this) by Intel on the one side and Airgo, leading MIMO chipmaker, on the other. The EWC proposal had many points of similarity with work in the JP. The acceptance of the EWC proposal by the JP sets the stage for supermajority voting of 75 percent that will allow the JP to become the draft upon which final ratification of the standard is based.

The vote passed the JP group 40 to 0, with two members not casting ballots; neither of the abstainers was Airgo, a source told me. The JP includes all major players in the industry.