Gigabit Wi-Fi (802.11ac) ready for the mass market



    Exactly one year ago, Broadcom introduced the first 802.11ac chips at the CES exhibition : the next-generation Wi-Fi standard, which provides transfer speeds of more than 1 Gb / s. At the same time, 802.11ac supports very useful MU-MIMO (channel separation between streams) and beamforming technologies - the ability to dynamically change the antenna pattern, so that the hotspot coverage area dynamically optimally adapts to the current location of the clients.

    The important thing is that with the implementation of 802.11ac, the devices go into the 5 GHz band, freeing up the 2.4 GHz frequencies. That is, if all your neighbors upgrade to 802.11ac, then your speed will increase without any upgrade.

    A year ago, Apple fans immediately decidedthat the new Wi-Fi is sure to be introduced in 2012 in all new Apple products, including home routers, laptops, etc., all the more so since the same MacBooks were already equipped with three Wi-Fi antennas from 2011. But nothing of the kind happened. In general, judging by the official 5G Wi-Fi website, only a dozen products with 802.11ac support appeared in a year : these are several routers, one laptop model and one motherboard.

    The reason is that manufacturers are waiting for the adoption of the final version of the 802.11ac standard. Experts are surethat already now, in 2013, the situation will definitely change. It is assumed that the adoption of the standard will take place at the very beginning of the year, and after that the mass introduction of 802.11ac will begin not only in routers and laptops, but in tablets and smartphones.

    Upgrading users to 802.11ac will take place in two stages. At the first stage, nothing interesting is expected: the speed is only doubled compared to 802.11n. i.e. up to 1.3 Gbit / s. This will be due to the use of 80 MHz channels instead of 40 MHz, as in 802.11n, improved channel compression and modulation technology.

    At the second stage, devices may appear that approach the theoretical limit of data transmission of 6.9 Gb / s, using all possible channels no longer on 80 MHz, but on 160 MHz in the 5 GHz band.


    Related : 802.11ac: what we need to know about the new Wi-Fi standard (author: Trifors )
    The next generation of Wi-Fi - briefly about 802.11ac (author: apcsb )

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