Just yesterday we told you about the new Atheros Align chipset family, which the Wi-Fi chip maker hopes will supplant 802.11g with ultra-cheap 802.11n that only uses a single stream of data.

Our news team got a note from the Wi-Fi Alliance itself that shed a bit more light on the subject of where exactly Align fits in with 5,000 products the Alliance has certified for interoperability. For now, it doesn't fit at all.

Kelly Davis-Felner, Alliance marketing director, says that the Alliance tests products with two transmit streams only, because that's currently a requirement of the 802.11n draft 2.0 specification. One stream doesn't cut it for the standard, so the Alliance, as of right now, has no plans to test products with one 11n stream. That will include all Align products when available in 2009. [Note: they can be certified to work with older 11g products.]

Then again, these things change with the wind. Davis-Felner added, "We're aware of the emergence of 1x1s [single stream products] in the market and the potential to certify them as part of the final 802.11n program." The Wi-Fi Alliance, the IEEE 802.11 Group which drafts the standards that become known as Wi-fi, and the hardware vendors all have to scratch each others' backs to keep the networking equipment industry interesting to customers. Don't be surprised if this changes before its even becomes an issue.