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Like what my high-pitched friend, Truman Capote, once said, "I really don't see what the fuss is about." Really.

He was referring to the movie, "To Kill a Mockingbird," I am talking about 802.11a here. Last night, another friend asked me if he should have purchased the 802.11a option with his E1505 Dell Notebook. His Notebook is capable of connecting to 802.11b and g networks, but not 'a.' He was worried that his notebook might be obsolete in the not-so-distant future.

I assured him that I have yet to see an 802.11a network (this is probably where I will get a lot of flak from I.T. Managers around the world). But really, in the 4 to 5 years that I have been using WiFi, I have never seen an 'a' network.

And now that vendors are scrambling to push 802.11n into the market, I wonder if it made any sense to purchase the 'a' option with any Centrino Notebooks.

To those of you who are unfamiliar with the preceding WiFi terminologies, here's a quick tutorial:
WiFi is governed by a set of IEEE standards called, "802.11x," where x denotes the different flavors of WiFi (e.g. a, b, g, n, etc). And just in case you are wondering, 'a' was not the first WiFi standard, 'b' is (go figure). 802.11b and g operate in the 2.4GHz Frequency Band. 802.11b has a maximum throughput of 11Mbps while g, 54Mbps. 802.11g has a better range than its lowly 'b' sibling.

So, what about 802.11a? 802.11a operates in the 5GHz region and also has a maximum throughput of 54Mbps, but it does not have the range of 802.11g. If you have not dozed off already, you are probably asking yourself this: Why bother? Yes, Why bother indeed?

Most Centrino Notebooks are already equipped to work with 802.11g, but customers have to pay extra to get 802.11a. In my mind (and I guess the minds of many people), that's virtually no value-add for the extra investment. And on an Enterprise level, that "extra investment" is serious money.

Both 'a' and 'g' are backward-compatible, i.e. anybody with a 802.11b client will be able to connect to those networks, but at reduced throughput.

Now, 802.11n boasts of a throughput upwards of 500Mbps. At the time this article is published, the final standard has not been ratified, but the market is already swarmed with "pre-N certified" routers and adapters. Now, with vendors switching their focus onto another more exciting and marketable standard, why anyone would want to use 802.11a is beyond me.

	This article is by: YC (Guest Blogger) from the Technocrat Soapbox