New WLAN will suit SMEs

Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) may be the most likely to adopt a new wireless local area network (WLAN) standard, according to a report.

ABI Research believes that smaller companies will be keen to adopt the 802.11n technology because, on top of its superior speed and throughput, many new PC models will have the standard built in.

Stan Schatt, the firm's vice president, provided reasons why SMEs will be more willing to buy 802.11n products while they are still in "draft status".

"Small businesses tend to buy small numbers of devices and trade them in more frequently than large companies," he said.

"They also tend to be far less knowledgeable about technology and standards than large companies with dedicated IT personnel."

ABI thinks that the real estate, retail, transportation and warehousing firms could be particularly "fertile ground" for the new 802.11n standard.

This is due to specific features in those sectors - for instance, real estate businesses will soon begin transmitting videos of homes, which will benefit from the extra bandwidth 802.11n offers compared to its predecessors.

In August, analyst firm In-Stat predicted that the standard could be one of the drivers behind large growth in the customer premises equipment market.