802.11ad: Wi-Fi Is About to Get Fast
802.11ad: Wi-Fi Is About to Get Fast by UCStrategies Staff
The Wi-Fi world is currently anticipating the approaching large-scale release of the new 802.11ac standard, yet experts speaking at an Interop NY panel have stated that the 802.11ad standard will probably be more momentous and consequential.
Realtek's director of standards and business development, Sean Coffey, said, “802.11ac is an extension for pure mainstream Wi-Fi... It's evolutionary. ... You're not going to see dramatically new use cases.”
The 802.11n is the current standard, and from this has developed the 802.11ac. On the same 5GHz frequency bands, the latter demonstrates improved performance. Some routers using the 802.11ac standard have already been distributed, and it was agreed by the experts on the NY panel that it will become commonplace by early 2013.
In contrast, the 802.11ad standard adds to the previously used 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies, by increasing to 60GHz connectivity. This will potentially provide multi-gigabit connection speeds and will greatly augment the number of applications for which wireless can be used.
Vice president of marketing for 60GHz pioneer Wilocity, Mark Grodzinsky, states, “There are some unique characteristics about the 60GHz band that really help in bringing a whole bunch of new use cases.” For example, wireless docking and uncompressed HD video streaming.
He added, “60 GHz is also highly directional... So whereas in 2.4 and 5 [GHz] it's pretty much an omnidirectional transmission, meaning the antennas just blow energy in all directions, with 60GHz, it's very focused.”
Coffey stated, however, that the 802.11ad standard will still not represent a wholesale shift in the nature of Wi-Fi.
“When you add in [802.11ad], I would see this as an island of super-high data rate present in a sea of gigabit Wi-Fi. What it does is allow you to do a massive amount of Wi-Fi offloading.” In essence, highly demanding tasks will implement the use of the localized and high-bandwidth 60GHz network, and will also keep the 5GHz frequency standard free for everyday use.
The 60GHz standard could appear on devices in 2014 and become widespread in 2015. This would indicate that the next major change is over a year away, partly because the 802.11ac standard will not be a testing upgrade for most end users.
Furthermore, Coffey noted that due to the frequencies being the same, the bandwidth issues which have affected the 802.11a/b/g to 802.11n upheavals will not be present in the move to 802.11ac. He stated, “The good news is that I think you will see a lot of these new channels being much more usable... just because there wasn't this extra factor.” (CY) Link