Wireless networks are found everywhere and the latest standard, 802.11n, offers transfer rates up to 300Mbps. In just two years we may get another update of the WiFi technology through the 802.11ac protocol that will offer transfer speeds up to 1Gbps, more than three times faster than current standards. This can be achieved by using the 5GHz frequency band and up to four times wider channels.
The 802.11n standard supports 20MHz and 40MHz wide channels but with 802.11ac they are talking about channels as wide as 80MHz or even 160MHz, which makes it possible to transfer data at much higher rates.
But even before IEEE will finalize the new protocol, sometime in 2012 if we’re lucky, we will see some performance improvements with the 802.11n technology. By allowing manufacturers to use more transmitters and up to three or four MIMO data streams we should speeds up to 450 to 600Mbps.
Already we ave support for three MIMO data streams with Apple’s latest Airport units and Intel’s 5300 circuits, so the only thing we need is support in the devices that use these circuits.
