Wireless transmission speeds in your home or business as fast as 7 gigabits per second. That's the vision of the next generation of WiFi, called WiGig, offered in a cooperation agreement announced Monday between the Wi-Fi Alliance and the WiGig Alliance.
The two industry groups said that they will share technology specification for the creation of a Wi-Fi Alliance certification for operation at 60 GHz. Current Wi-Fi network supports 2.4 and 5 GHz. Downward compatibility to the current spec is expected in many devices that will support WiGig.
The top transmission rate of 7 Gbps is more than ten times faster than the highest 802.11N Wi-Fi rate. The organizations said that protocol adaptation layers, now in development, will support different device architectures, including PC data buses and displays such as HD TVs, monitors, and projectors.
"From its inception," said Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa in a statement, "the WiGig specification was designed to work on a wide variety of devices." The process now moves to definition of the interoperability and certification standards, and for adoption of WiGig in products for home and business.
Both organizations have been working toward faster transmission protocols, and both share many member companies in common. For example, Cisco, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Panasonic are members of both groups.
The spec itself defines protocols for data transfer in the gigabit range, and it also indicates the hand-over procedure so that devices can operate in the lower bands. The organizations said they expected the new standard and the certification process will result in a new category of tri-band Wi-Fi Certified devices, capable of operating at 60, 5, and 2.4 GHz.
One question is what kind of applications used in homes and businesses could benefit from such high wireless speeds. Avi Greengart, an analyst with industry research...
Posted: 2010-05-10 10:06:18
