Techworld's Peter Judge today notes that while the Wi-Fi Alliance is issuing brands and logos for Draft N equipment, "it is not testing the most controversial part of the specifications -- whether the new Wi-Fi kit will cripple existing 802.11g networks."

"The 802.11n standard from the IEEE standard group will improve Wi-Fi performance to 100 Mbit/s or even 200 Mbit/s, but part of this improvement comes from using 40 MHz radio channels twice as wide as today's 20 MHz channels," Judge writes. "In the limited space of the 2.4 GHz band, these wider channels can interfere with today's 802.11g Wi-Fi networks."

"Realize that anything goes when it comes to cooperation [with] neighboring wireless LANs," warns SmallNetBuilder's Tim Higgins. "You might find angry neighbors banging on your door accusing you of knocking their wireless off the air. Then again, you might find your throughput severly reduced, too. So the long road to 802.11n continues. Hang on, folks, because Wi-Fi mark or no, there still be plenty of dragons ahead. Arrrrghhh!"

More here from Wi-Fi Networking News.