At the eleventh hour, Nokia has switched allegiance in the fight over the next-generation Wi-Fi standard, announcing today it has joined the World Wide Spectrum Efficiency Consortium, after initially backing competing group TGn Sync. Both consortiums are pushing their own vision for 802.11n, which is expected to more than double today’s current Wi-Fi speeds, before the IEEE.

WWiSE is presenting its Multiple Input/Multiple Output (MIMO) and Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) to 802.11 Task Group N, and Nokia’s backing adds extra clout to the consortium, which recently gained momentum by merging its efforts with those of Motorola. But TGn Sync still has the backing of major industry heavy hitters, including both Cisco and Intel, two of the principal manufacturers in the Wi-Fi space.

TGn Sync is backing a technology based on MIMO spatial division multiplexing, which the group claims can deliver 243 Mb/s in a two-antenna configuration over 40 MHz of spectrum and 600 Mb/s over four antennas. Meanwhile WWiSE is claiming its OFDM/MIMO technology will deliver 135 Mb/s over the standard 20 MHz Wi-Fi channel and 540 Mb/s over a four-antenna/40 MHz configuration.

Task Group N is meeting next week in Atlanta to consider the two proposals and is expected to select one as the baseline of the 802.11n standard. Aside from Nokia and Motorola, the WWiSE Consortium includes Broadcom, Airgo Networks, ETRI, Hughes Networks Systems, Conexant, Ralink Technology, Realtek, ST Microsystems, Texas Instruments, TrellisWare Technologies and Winbond Electronics. In addition to Cisco and Intel, TGn Sync includes Agere, Atheros Communications, InterDigital Communications, Marvell Semiconductor, Mitsubishi Electric, Nortel Networks, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sanyo and Sharp.