The Wi-Fi Alliance has gotten into the middle of a year-old dispute between chipmakers Broadcom and Atheros.

Broadcom jumped into new, faster versions of the standard, like 802.11g, long before those standards were approved and finalized. They kept these innovations off their Web sites, sampling them to equipment makers.

Essentially Broadcom jumped the gun and defined the standard in the market. When Atheros finally came out with its chip sets, there was interference, due to technical differences. This hampered performance, eliminated interoperability, and had the effect of slowing the overall growth of the home networking market.

Whether the Wi-Fi Alliance is able to create real standards depends, not on committees, but on the willingness of individual vendors to play by the rules the group sets.

Broadcom, however, may be more interested in following standards than before, because its move solidified its market leadership. Now that it sits in the driver's seat, it's in its interest that the market grow as rapidly as possible.

Personally I don't think the radio standard question means as much as it did. The challenge is to mold home networks to the confines of your property. The "innovations" of the last year by companies like 2Wire (higher-power radios) and Netopia (a fancier antenna) haven't done the job.

Thus, I'm far more interested in technology that molds networks to the specific air space you want to access than in radio compatibility (that's easy to do if you want to). These innovations, like those of the "gateway makers," aren't based on new silicon, but on new configuration software that can adapt signals to the environment.

What does it all mean? I think it means that the home networking revolution has been delayed. New technology that goes beyond the current standards needs to go into the market. And it will.

Mesh configurations and cognitive radio systems can reduce interference, and make sure that your network goes only where you want it to. That's what I think the market wants.