Saturday, January 28, 2012

802.11ac: Gigabit Wi-Fi

I just read a cool article at Networkworld.com about the new 802.11ac standard.  Here's the link:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/tech/2012/012712-80211ac-primer-255416.html

I don't keep up much with Wi-Fi, although perhaps I should be.  Forgive me if this next thought seems a little so-seven-years-ago, but it seems like everything is wireless now.  Now that the new Gigabit Wi-Fi will be released in the near future, I can only imagine the what we'll be able to do within our homes.  I mean, I already watch full-length movies in high-definition on my laptop!  This was absolutely out of the question a mere 10 years ago.

From what I understand, there are still some kinks that need to be worked out at the enterprise level; channel sharing being chief among them.  However, the at-home functionality should be a rather nice upgrade pending you have the requisite hardware in place.

Not only that, but some of the channel overlap that's currently apart of the 802.11n standard should be mitigated somewhat in the new standard.  Essentially, we should have more channels to choose from than the sometimes painful 1, 6, and 11 options currently available in most Wi-Fi implementations.  This feature alone will make the new standard a worthwhile purchase for me.  I absolutely, positively cannot stand when my Netflix videos begin to delay, only to find that my neighbor is on my same Wi-Fi channel, but I digress.

I liken the above-mentioned 3 channel option available in the current 802.11 standard to the 3 TV channels my parents had when they were growing up.  At some point technology advanced, and now having a limit of 3 television channels seems almost cruel and inhumane.  I suspect that our children will say the same thing about our current selection of Wi-Fi options.

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