Next Generation Wireless Technology to Bring Data Transfer Speed in Gigabits

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Submitted by lalit on December 10, 2009 - 4:06pm.

Two wireless technologies will very soon bring gigabit data transfer speeds to our homes. The first technology is new WiGig that runs on 60GHz spectrum and can transfer up to 7Gbps data. The second technology is the one we all love and use every day – WiFi. The new 802.11ac standard will bring up to 1Gbps download speed on 80Mhz or 160MHz spectrum.

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) today announced the completion of its unified wireless specifications. The new specification will offer more than 10 times faster data transfer speed when compared 802.11n WiFi technology. The specifications are now ready for member review and are anticipated to be made available to WiGig adopter members in Q1 2010.

The main features of the new WiGig version 1.0 technology are:

  • Supports data transmission rates up to 7Gbps – more than ten times faster than the highest 802.11n rate
  • Supplements and extends the 802.11 Medium Access Control (MAC) layer and is backward compatible with the IEEE 802.11 standard
  • Physical layer enables both low power and the high performance WiGig devices, guaranteeing interoperability and communication at gigabit rates
  • Protocol adaptation layers are being developed to support specific system interfaces including data buses for PC peripherals and display interfaces for HDTVs, monitors and projectors
  • Support for beamforming, enabling robust communication at distances beyond 10 meters
  • Widely used advanced security and power management for WiGig devices

The above mentioned highlights not only make WiGig faster, but also better than current 802.11n technology for high speed data transfer between devices like HDTV that offer high definitation audio and video output. However, IEEE has also started work on next generation WiFi technology called 802.11ac that upgrades 802.11a standard to use 80MHz and 160MHz channels.

The new 802.11ac standard will offer 10 percent increase in efficiency for modulating the actual frequencies, which would result in theoretical transfer speeds of up to 1Gbps, about three times more than present 802.11n standard. IEEE has just started work on the new technology and a usable draft standard should be released by late 2011 and the standard should be approved by December 2012.

It will be interesting to see which of the two technologies will win the wireless war, as the WiGig offers faster data transfer and it will be launched two years before 802.11ac. But WiFi 802.11ac will consume less power and will have support from many of the industry’s biggest names. Or will the two technologies offer two different solutions in the real world.