Members of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards board will be meeting today to possibly approve the 802.11i standard. The upgrade adds the AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) security protocol to the various 802.11 Wi-Fi flavors. AES supports 128-bit, 192-bit and 256-bit keys.

The path to 802.11i has been a long one, the industry pushing for WPA (Wi-Fi protected access) as an interim solution to the feeble security offered by WEP. WPA was a subset of 802.11i, and repaired many of the problems of WEP while the final standard was cooking in the oven.

With the security offered by AES, many companies who were slow to adopt Wi-Fi may now have a change of heart (likewise with paranoid residential shut-ins). The National Institute of Standards and Technology has designated AES as the security standard for wireless networks that carry government information.

Will users need to upgrade? While many outlets have reported otherwise, the majority of Wi-Fi chips shipped since roughly the middle of 2002 should be powerful enough to handle the new specification, and will simply need firmware upgrades from their respective vendors.

Many vendors like Broadcom and Atheros have essentially already integrated AES functionality, and are simply waiting for the green light. Intel says they're ready to offer the new security standard in their Centrino line of hardware.

A significant amount of older hardware will likely need to be replaced, however. Once the IEEE ratifies the standard, the group is expected to begin certifying products in September.