No, not MIMO!

Some still suggesting MIMO as best compromise

Glenn Fleishman and Becky Waring are right to point out the limitations of Draft-N kits. But where I think they're slightly wide of the mark is what they have to say about MIMO. Both are set against users buying Draft-N. And rightly so. But Fleishman, while right to say consumers should wait, suggests that if they can't because of the need for extra range, they should buy MIMO. I don't believe in this. If they're willing to take a risk, Draft-N is the route to go. While there is a lot of controversy about it, there is a very, very good chance that Draft-N will be firmware upgradeable to 802.11n. Secondly, the Gen3 Airgo MIMO chips don't offer great interoperability. Indeed, they seriously compromise surrounding networks. Original MIMO units may be a good interim solution. But, with the bigger picture in mind, we should be encouraging end users to bide their time. Waring, on the other hand, seems to suggest that Draft-N is inferior to Airgo's Gen3 chips because of the poorer throughput. But end users should not be encouraged to pick up boxes such as the Linksys SRX400; owing to worries at the companies concerned, kits featuring Gen3 chips from Buffalo, Netgear and Linksys hardly appeared on UK shores, especially when Draft-N was in sight. And indeed, while Draft-N isn't ideal, at least it has some kind of future.