Wilocity WiGig blows regular Wi-Fi to bits, with speeds up to 7 Gbps.
To put this into perspective, let’s say your car can go 90Mph top speed.
Now imagine, you put a new chip in it, and it can go 10X faster. 900Mph.
Our everyday vanilla WiFi (802.11a/b/g/n) operates at 2.4Ghz/5Ghz frequencies, now we really ramp it up to 60Ghz, capable of transferring data up to 7 Gbps. That’s more than 10 times the maximum speed previously enabled within the IEEE 802.11™ standard, acting as the foundation for tri-band networking.
To make this happen, two industry giants came together. Qualcomm Atheros, Inc., and Wilocity, a leading developer of 60GHz multi-gigabit wireless chipsets, launched the industry’s first tri-band reference design that combines 802.11ac and 802.11ad wireless capabilities on a single module.
Watch the vision of WiGig here (video).
Based on Qualcomm VIVE™ 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Wilocity 802.11ad WiGig™ wireless technologies, the reference design delivers tri-band Wi-Fi, which allows consumers to connect to 60GHz-enabled devices, docks, displays and storage at multi-gigabit speeds, while maintaining enterprise-wide or whole home coverage with 2.4GHz/5GHz Wi-Fi.
The latest generation tri-band wireless networking card takes advantage of the new Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ac combined with the recently ratified 802.11ad standard that enables multi-gigabit networking, data syncing, and video and audio streaming, while maintaining its wireless bus extension docking capabilities. By integrating a solution that combines whole home, gigabit-class Wi-Fi with in-room, multi-gigabit connectivity into their devices, equipment manufacturers will benefit from the ultra-high speed this newest solution offers. The latest generation tri-band wireless networking card will be available in two options: the QCA9006NFC next-generation form factor (NGFF) and the QCA9006WBD half-mini card (HMC) specification.
The IEEE 802.11ad specification adds a “fast session transfer” feature, which enables wireless devices to seamlessly transition between the 60 GHz frequency band and the legacy 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The ability to imperceptively move between the bands ensures that computing devices are always “best connected,” enabling them to operate with optimal performance and range criteria. Through the vast improvements in spectral reuse at 60 GHz, and an efficient beam forming technology, IEEE 802.11ad enables great improvements in capacity. Many users in a dense deployment can all maintain top-speed performance, without interfering with each other, or having to share bandwidth as with the legacy frequency bands.
In the immediate future (few years), not that much, as manufacturers start implementing this new technology into their devices, but you will definitely want to keep this on your radar.
Operating at 60Ghz, this allows the signals to be lightning fast, but extremely prone to obstacles, such as cubicle walls, blocking the signal. To help counteract this phenomenon, WiGig has beam forming technology, which helps direct the 60Ghz waves. It can reflect off the walls to find the right way. This is why, in a worst case scenario, the 802.11ad “fast session transfer” feature comes in to play, enabling wireless devices to seamlessly transition between the 60 GHz frequency band and the legacy 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands if the 60Ghz connection gets broken.
As our need to transfer more data, faster, in more quantities keeps rising, luckily, WiFi will still be able to keep up.