Wi-Fi speeds are about to get a whole lot faster!
In 2007, ‘The Wireless Gigabit Alliance’ (WiGig) was formed with the purpose of creating faster and more efficient communications technology. The idea was to create wireless interconnectivity that flowed seamlessly through your home entertainment and communication devices, entirely removing the need for cords. Connecting your Television, Personal Computer, Tablet, Smartphone and any other IOT devices wirelessly so they are always ready to communicate and transfer from one to another without any delay.
Since then the WiGig have been working on wireless technology that far exceeds speeds inhabited by current devices. In 2010 WiGig began collaborating with the Wi-Fi Alliance. In 2012 the alliances formed under the Wi-Fi Alliance organisation.
It has been 4 years since the merger and The Wifi alliance has begun to certify laptops, tablets, smart phones, routers and other devices with the capability to use WiGig, which nearly doubles Wi-Fi’s current top speed. It is believed that we will begin to see this technology in flagship devices starting next year.
Although WiGig is almost twice as fast, one of its downsides is that it only has a range of around 10 meters or just over 30 feet long. So once you do have compatible devices to use, you will more or less be limited to the room in which the router resides. As Kevin Robinson Marketing Vice President of Wi-fi Alliance has has commented, this kind of high speed Wi-Fi is suited towards in room technology. Close but powerful connections.
Having a short range is obviously a major limitation for the WiGig and what it can be used for, at the same time however, plenty of possibilities for use do arise. As The Verge have expressed, perhaps the most exciting of possible adaption is with the use of Virtual Reality technology. At this stage, using a VR headset with a computer or console leaves you encumbered in a whole lot of thick and undesirable cords. As you can see there are articles on the internet on “How to keep the Oculus Rift or Htc Vive cords out of the way”, so the cord situation is definitely an issue. At this stage, current wifi speeds are just not fast enough to replace the cords. This is where WiGig comes in, providing speeds fast enough to support VR and AR while further improving the quality of 4K Video and streaming phone, laptop and console displays over you home Wi-Fi connection.
Other applications, where a strong and fast connection is desired over high range would also be best suited for use with the WiGig. This could be the use of Wi-Fi within cars. Where you are looking at only needing a 1 – 2 m radius and anything more than that is simply not needed. The same goes for Cafes where it could also be ideal to have a shorter range, making the wifi unusable for those not actually at the cafe.
Now to use WiGig your device needs to support 802.11ad. This is the new wireless standard that includes support for WiGig. Currently, most of our smartphones, computers and routers support 801.11ac Wi-Fi, which has a theoretical top speed of 4.5Gbps – Not that it ever reaches that. This is in comparison to WiGig or 802.11ad that is believed to reach a top speed of 8Gbps. That is equivalent to moving a (100GB) 4K Movie from one device to another in as little as 13 seconds. So it is definitely fast.
At this stage there is only a few devices currently supporting the new ac wifi and these devices are limited to routers like the Nighthawk X10 AD7200 router and the Talon AD7200 from TP-Link. As can be seen on the Wi-Fi Alliance’s website however, Intel have now been certified for use and as a result we should start to see new devices with the WiGig capability in the near future.
Sources: The Verge, Wi-Fi Alliance,
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