Roger Fingas
The Wi-Fi Alliance has officially certified WiGig, also known as 802.11ad, which could drastically improve the speed of transfers over local Wi-Fi networks and better support gigabit-speed internet connections.
Though operating within a limited range of just under 33 feet, WiGig employs beamforming for transfers up to 8 gigabits (1 gigabyte) per second. That's about three to four times faster than the typical maximum of 802.11ac, potentially useful for large-scale file transfers.
WiGig operates in the "less congested" 60 gigahertz spectrum, the Alliance said. Certified devices should also be able to hand off connections to the slower 2.4 and 5 gigahertz bands as necessary.
While the first certified consumer products are Dell's Latitude 7450 and 7470 laptops, the technology is eventually expected to make its way into routers, tablets, smartphones, and other categories. Some companies, like Samsung, have already released uncertified WiGig hardware. Both ends of a connection will need to be WiGig-ready to achieve supported speeds.
Apple is unlikely to have any WiGig products out this year, but could upgrade iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices in 2017. One possibility is that Apple will finally upgrade its AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule routers, which have sat essentially unchanged since 2013.
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10 Comments
It's always going to be the ISP being the weakest link. If they offer it, the prices will be too high for the average consumer. Can't really utilize Gigabit WiFi speeds with a slow ISP speeds unless one wants to use it for file transfers inside ones home. My little thought.
I'd rather have more features in the existing routers such as a usage counters and throttles.
33 feet? I might as well use a hardwired connection. Of wait, Apple got rid of those on new laptops. I guess I'll need to buy a TB adapter. Unless someone comes up with an adequate mesh type system that doesn't degrade the speed too much, having WiGig isn't going to do too much for me. I'd rather see AirPort Extreme extend the distance of their 5GHz connection. That would make more sense for the majority of users. As @macseeker mentioned, it's still the ISP that's slowing things down. I can transfer a whole lot more data between computers using a gig-ethernet connection on my LAN than dealing with my ISP (Comcast >100Mbps). Forget about trying anything using cellular connections. Companies wanting to install fiber connections will never get anywhere in newer subdivisions since they'll need to did up the streets and yards to get to the house. Even then, the cost of faster ethernet is prohibitive and competition won't help since there isn't any.