Such an improvement would benefit VoIP calls being made through wireless networks, as well as video conferencing.
The new IEEE standard, also known as 'Fast Basic Service Set Transition', aims to reduce access points handoff time to well under 50ms, compared to the current 100ms.
Extended handoff times can lead to significantly degraded voice calls. When the wireless connection is encrypted using Wi-Fi Protected Access or WPA2 these handoff times lengthen to seconds.
However, questions remain as to how long vendors will take to market wireless kit supporting 802.11r.