The development of two new wireless standards may make it easier for enterprises to roll out, maintain and use wireless LANs (WLANs).

The International Engineering Task Force (IETF) recently adopted AireSpace's Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP) as a basis for centralised "intelligent wireless switches" to control wireless access points (APs) in WLANs. Meanwhile, in a separate move, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is developing its 802.11n draft standard, defining new methods to increase the data transfer rates of the current 802.11b, 802.11g and 802.11a hardware.

Historically, WLAN vendors' APs have tended to use proprietary methods of communicating, and these have tended to be incompatible with those of their competitors, due largely to the lack of an agreed standard.

Last year, however, vendors including Aruba and Trapeze announced interoperability programmes to allow other brands of AP to interoperate and be managed with multiple brands of wireless switches.

And last year, the IETF working group looked at four protocols as candidates for the basis for intelligent wireless switches. The main two were AireSpace's LWAPP and Aruba's Secure Light Access Point Protocol (Slapp).

Adoption of an intelligent wireless standard - currently referred to as the Configuration and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (Capwap) protocol - is unlikely to affect IT buyers' decisions in the short term, predicted Mark Blowers of analyst Butler Group. However, he added that in the long term, sales of interoperable WLAN kit based on Capwap will grow.

Aruba's director of technical marketing, John Green, said an interoperable standard is not as important as it once was because there are not many vendors left, but a final standard will probably be ratified in a year's time. He added that currently firms' buying decisions are based on price rather than interoperability. "People would only change vendors if they thought they were being ripped off," he argued.

Cisco's manager of wireless technology marketing, Andy Oldfield, predicted, "The ratification process [for Capwap] could take between 12 and 24 months, if no fundamental changes are required."

As for the 802.11n standard, a joint proposal from the breakaway Enhanced Wireless Consortium (which lists Broadcom, Cisco and Intel as members) and Airgo Networks has now been submitted for a vote, and will probably be adopted as a draft proposal during the next IEEE meeting in Hawaii.

Forthcoming 802.11n technology will greatly increase throughput, but IT managers are unlikely to roll out such systems until final Wi-Fi Alliance interoperability testing scheduled for 2007 to 2008, say experts. And there may be interference with existing 802.11b or 11g WLAN kit, because 802.11n systems may clash with their wireless channels.