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Gigabit Wi-Fi On the Horizon
alphadogg writes to mention that the same working group that brought you the standard for the 802.11n wireless communications is already poised to launch a gigabit Wi-Fi project. "Last year, group members formed the Very High Throughput (VHT) Study Group to explore changes to the 802.11 WLAN standard to support gigabit capacity. The study group is looking at doing so in two frequency bands, high-frequency 60GHz for relatively short ranges and under-6GHz for ranges similar to that of today's WLANs in the 5GHz band, 802.11a and 11n."
Yes, because the only thing people ever use LANs for is Internet access!
Nobody has brought us N yet. According to Wikipedia, it probably won't be ratified until November 2009. They should probably work on that first.
Have no fear. They haven't even managed to get 802.11n ratified/completed yet. Expect this to be realistic in Q4 2048.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Doesn't invalidate my point. The US has fallen way behind many other nations in terms of broadband capability, and that is likely to have a negative impact on US businesses as well as consumers in many ways in the fairly near future.
Caveat Utilitor
Before going gigabit, we await a few fixes
- we should have a true full duplex communication with radio resource allocation. We need this for VoIP
- we should have better network density (more user per network)
- we should have better way to avoid interference between neighbouring networks.
- in case of wimax, high latency has been reported when network becomes really used and bad behaviour inside buildings.
- next gen wireless network should also be optimised to avoid battery drain.
- For network pairing, please copy GAP/DECT technology and remove this network key usability nonsense.
- Innovate by making wireless roaming easy.
Fix this first. Otherwise, at this rate, big telco and 3G technology will rule.
"At a meeting this week in Hawaii, the study group has been finalizing a proposal calling for creation of a new, as yet unnamed task group to carry forward the work of crafting a standard."
No tech yet, no people yet, no name yet but it's coming soon trust us......
And when it rains, sidewalks are wet. That's also a valid point, but it has nothing to do with the topic! What the hell does US broadband capability have to do with with a group working on short-range gigabit wifi?
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
I think the point is that here in the U.S. we are stuck with a megabit infrastructure, while gigabit wireless ( logically, the final component for ubiquitous gigabit networking) is nearly here.
Maybe you'd understand it better like this: Say our roads were only rated for vehicles traveling at 35 MPH, and we weren't investing in better roads -- while cars are capable of safely traveling at high speeds in may other countries, we remain stuck with 35 MPH limits. Now, you see? It shows how far we've fallen behind, that's what it has to do with it.