What's the difference between pre-n and draft n routers?

Answer 1

The terms are used loosely, but the difference is that pre-n came first, before there was even a draft standard. Once the IEEE released the first 802.11n draft (rough copy if you will) then the vendors started releasing their draft-n equipment based on that first draft. My advice to to hold off, the finalized standard can and will change, so there's no guarantee that your pre-n or draft-n equipment will not become junk sometime late next year, it it probably won't interoperate with another vendors equipment. Check out the below PC Magazine article from last month...
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1977784,00.asp

Answer 2

They refer to the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) 802.11n Standard. The IEEE iis working on the next “standard” which will be 802.11n, but it has not been finalized as of yet (expected release is July, 2007).

Both pre-n and draft-n are part of the alphabet soup of the 802.11 standard. When you see a “pre-n” product, it is one designed based on the future “n.”

standard, but is not a standard. It will generally only work with that companies devices, which means if you buy brand XYZ’s wireless router, you will also need to buy brand XYZ’s wireless networking adapters for all of your computers.

Interoperability between pre-n and non pre-n devices can be difficult and even if you get it to work, you don’t gain anything unless everything is pre-n.

Draft-n refers to the current draft of the “n” standard, but is still a pre-standard release of product. In other words, you would still be buying technology that has been released prior to the finalizing of the standard.

There is no guarantee that the future standard for “n” will work with anything that you buy today that is either pre-n or draft-n.

Answer 3

They are the same. 802.1n is the new wireless standard being drafted by the IEEE. Pre and draft simply mean that some vendor have come out with devices that talk a pre ratifie 802.1n standard. TX