There has been a fair amount of recent news coverage of a faster version of Wi-Fi coming, called WiGig and capable of greater than 1Gbps.
WiGig is an IEEE 802.11 amendment, specifically 802.11ad, for 60GHz operation at greater than a gigabit speed. The high-frequency spectrum used prevents the network from reaching through walls or around corners, and thus is really targeted for home entertainment (such as a wireless HDMI replacement). Nevertheless, through our position in the Wi-Fi Alliance, with whom the WiGig Alliance just agreed to work closely with, and IEEE, we are monitoring the development of this new technology. At the moment, it does not seem that this technology will have significant enterprise applicability.
IEEE has a companion project, 802.11ac, for gigabit operation within the standard Wi-Fi spectrum. This amendment builds upon 802.11n, to provide higher throughput by, in part, using even wider channels and more than four spatial streams. This technology is just in the exploratory stages, and it will be a few years before it reaches commercial products. We are closely monitoring the developments there as well.
Related articles
- Wi-Fi Alliance and WiGig Join Up For 60GHz Wi-Fi Products [Wireless] (gizmodo.com)
- Alliance of Wi-Fi and WiGig Standards in 60 GHz (Glenn Fleishman/Wi-Fi Networking News) (techmeme.com)
- WiGig Alliance Publishes Multi-Gigabit Wireless Specification and Launches Adopter Program (eon.businesswire.com)
- WiGig group opens way to gigabit wireless devices (news.cnet.com)
- Wireless Gigabit set to become next-gen Wi-Fi? (go.theregister.com)
- Next-Gen Wi-Fi specs promise 10x transfer speed, Apple seen as driving adoption (edibleapple.com)
- WiGig Alliance teams with Wi-Fi group for superfast wireless (infoworld.com)
- Next-gen gigabit wireless spec formalized with 7Gbps speeds (arstechnica.com)
- New Frequency Set to Turbocharge Wi-Fi (wired.com)
