Gigabit Wi-Fi (802.11ac) ready for the mainstream market

Exactly a year ago, at CES, Broadcom unveiled the first 802.11ac chips: the next-generation Wi-Fi standard, which provides a transfer rate of more than 1 Gbit / s. At the same time, very useful MU-MIMO technologies (channel separation between streams) and beamforming are supported in 802.11ac - the ability to dynamically change the antenna pattern, so that the hotspot coverage area is dynamically optimally adjusted to the current location of clients.

It is important that the introduction of 802.11ac devices go into the 5 GHz band, freeing the 2.4 GHz frequency. That is, if all your neighbors upgrade to 802.11ac, then your speed will increase without any upgrade.

A year ago, Apple fans immediately decided that in 2012, new Apple products would be introduced to all Apple products, including home routers, laptops, etc., especially since the same MacBooks from 2011 were already equipped with three Wi-Fi antennas -Fi. But nothing like this happened. In general, judging by the official 5G Wi-Fi website, only a dozen products with 802.11ac support appeared in a year: these are several routers, one laptop model and one motherboard.
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The reason is that manufacturers are waiting for the adoption of the final version of the standard 802.11ac. Experts are sure that now, in 2013, the situation will definitely change. It is assumed that the approval of the standard will take place at the very beginning of the year, and after that the mass introduction of 802.11ac will begin not only in routers and laptops, but in tablets and smartphones.

The user upgrade to 802.11ac will take place in two stages. At the first stage, nothing interesting is expected: the speed only doubles, compared to 802.11n. that is, up to 1.3 Gbit / s. This will happen through the use of 80 MHz channels instead of 40 MHz, as in 802.11n, an improved channel multiplexing and modulation technology.

At the second stage, devices may appear that approach the theoretical data transfer limit of 6.9 Gbit / s, using all possible channels no longer at 80 MHz, but at 160 MHz in the 5 GHz band.

On this topic:
802.11ac: what we need to know about the new Wi-Fi standard (by: Trifors )
The next generation of Wi-Fi - 802.11ac in brief (by apcsb )