The lack of apples-to-apples performance benchmark tests for Wi-Fi networks is becoming a bigger bone of contention, as would-be customers really have no way to compare the throughput and range claims of emerging, high-speed 802.11n networks. This situation, however, could soon improve.

With talk of all-wireless enterprises and wireless multimedia applications rampant, prospective buyers need to verify what users will experience under a variety of environmental conditions. But it is difficult and costly for enterprises to build test networks with hundreds or thousands of access points themselves.

So German testing and assessment services company TUVRheinland Group and Wi-Fi test equipment maker VeriWave have partnered to develop and execute a Wi-Fi testing methodology that measures not only network metrics (throughput, range, packet loss, jitter and latency) but also the quality of end users’ Wi-Fi experiences under varying conditions. The companies’ intent is to form an independent testing alliance that will offer objective third-party benchmark ratings to products that have already been interoperability-certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, says Farouk Zanaty, wireless development manager at TUVRheinland of North America.

To evaluate user experiences, the companies plan to use such yardsticks as mean opinion score (MOS) for voice and media delivery input (MDI) scores for video, adds Eran Karoly, VP of marketing at VeriWave.

The tests would combine the best components of three documents, he says: the 802.11.2 “Wireless Performance Prediction” document still under construction by the IEEE 802.11T working group; an IETF Internet-Draft called “Benchmarking Terminology for Wireless LAN Switching Systems”; and a test plan that VeriWave wrote and published last summer.

TUVRheinland and VeriWave are currently working to recruit the likes of Atheros, Broadcom, Cisco, Marvell, Research In Motion and others in the hopes to begin operations as soon as it rounds out its board of directors.

How will the program differ from the Wi-Fi Alliance? Wi-Fi Alliance certification verifies that your products will work with other vendors’ Wi-Fi-certified products. But the certification gives no indication as to how well they will work.

So TUVRheinland and VeriWave would like to pick up where the Alliance leaves off with a global program reminiscent of the role that CableLabs has long played in the cable modem industry. VeriWave runs such tests in its simulation lab for network equipment vendors today, but shares the performance results only with its customers.

Joanie Wexler is an independent networking technology writer/editor in Silicon Valley.