5 ms·

Fastest Wi-Fi ever is almost ready for real-world use

58 points by Libertatea 14y ago

hayksaakian 14y ago
"...with the downside of using frequencies that are easily blocked by walls. Even thin cubicle walls may block signals, Wilocity acknowledged. "
- femto 14y ago
  That's an asset for a lot of indoor applications, as it allows an independent cell in each room, meaning minimal loss of data capacity due to interference between cells in the same band. You need an access point for each room, but that's okay once the hardware is cheap. For new installations, one can wire a building for data, analogous to wiring for lighting, with access points in place of luminaries. Eventually we will see light fittings with inbuilt 60GHz access points? The usage scenario for 60GHz is similar to infrared. The main advantage of 60GHz being that it able to penetrate a wider range of materials, thus offering better coverage. It will be interesting to see what the patent landscape is for this. I'm hopeful that it will be largely unencumbered, so will become mainstream quickly. The basic system was defined 15-20 years ago, as OFDM based WLAN was always intended to operate in the 60GHz bands [1]. For the last 15-20 years its been a case of waiting for (cheap) radio technology to catch up with, and enable, the original WLAN vision. [1] http://www.sss-mag.com/pdf/97_mmlan.pdf http://www.sss-mag.com/pdf/97_mmlan.pdf
- dnu 14y ago
  Not good for a house, but very useful for apartments in large buildings. You can have one wireless AP in each room (connected to eachother with wires), and almost no interference from the neighbours.
  - hayksaakian 14y ago
    Is there no developing, competing standard that improves on current WiFi without these drawbacks?
    - kbuck 14y ago
      802.11n on the 5GHz band (most implementations use 2.4GHz) already does this. The real problem is the 2.4GHz band, which is simply over-saturated. 2.4GHz also penetrates walls really well, which is a drawback in apartment situations because it introduces more interference from neighboring access points (and many other devices operating on or near the 2.4GHz frequency - wireless phones, microwaves, etc.). I've used a 5GHz 802.11n AP in my last two apartments; it's worked great every time. Most of the time I don't even see any other access points in range. Even if there are other APs, 5GHz has many more frequency bands available, so avoiding interference is simple. The only drawback is that so many devices don't support 5GHz. My smartphone didn't until I upgraded to the SGS III, and my Nook still doesn't. Also, 5GHz is faster because the spec allows 40MHz channels.
      - hayksaakian 14y ago
        So would pushing for 5ghz N be better than 60ghz?
        joenathan 14y ago
        AC is 5GHz @ 1Gbs and it is already available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-AC1750-Gigabit-Router/dp/B008ABOJKS/ http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-AC1750-Gig...
        dnu 14y ago
        Yes, but it can also use several channels. This plus the AC standard becoming more popular will lead to overcrowding in 5 GHz also. 2.4 GHz has 3 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels. 5 GHz has about 23 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels. Both go through walls, so you will get interference from neighbouring apartments no matter what technology you implement. The only solutions are to use a much higher frequency, or shield your apartment walls.
- JulianMontez 14y ago
  That quote is referring to the theoretical 7Gbps speed, not it's standard one.
  - CognitiveLens 14y ago
    It's actually the radio frequency itself that doesn't penetrate walls - it's not a bandwidth restriction, so it has nothing to do with theoretical throughput.
FollowSteph3 14y ago
As nice as the speed is, I think the real application is docking stations for mobile devices - think iPhone, android, etc. I take my mobile device with me, put it near a wigi router and all of a sudden I have a wireless keyboard mouse monitors etc all hooked up. No wires required. No setup, nothing!! Very cool for portability!! My friend comes over and they just bring their devices to the table and were using another mobile device fully integrated. The mobile device is a portable brain. Very cool!!
- FollowSteph3 14y ago
  You could even automtically hook up your phone to your tv, etc. no wires needed. As long as your phone carries everything, it can be hooked up to anything automatically when you step into a room!
- jrockway 14y ago
  When my computer is not connected to the Internet, I don't have my Wikipedia with me. But when I bring it near my wireless router, suddenly it's all accessible again!
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
I'm looking forward to this. I have two great rooms that may have a dozen active devices at any moment. I'm ok with the single-room applications for both of these common areas. I can imagine a lot of similar places in offices. Cubicles could have antanae attached or be made of a material that is more willing to reflect the beams; much easier than pulling wires.
- jseliger 14y ago
  >I have two great rooms that may have a dozen active devices at any moment. If any of them are stationary, or mostly stationary, you might just want to run an ethernet cable. Even long ones are dirt cheap from Monoprice. For instance, I wired my iMac, my girlfriend's iMac, and leave a wire at our kitchen table, where laptops are most likely to be used, for about $12 shipped. Transferring video files between machines is now fast, and we don't have interference from neighboring networks (or vice-versa). Ethernet also makes using distributed processing using Compressor (http://documentation.apple.com/en/compressor/usermanual/index.html#chapter=8%26section=6%26tasks=true http://documentation.apple.com/en/compressor/usermanual/inde...) easy.
  - elithrar 14y ago
    > If any of them are stationary, or mostly stationary, you might just want to run an ethernet cable. Even long ones are dirt cheap from Monoprice. For instance, I wired my iMac, my girlfriend's iMac, and leave a wire at our kitchen table, where laptops are most likely to be used, for about $12 shipped. I think the issue for most is not the cost of the cables, but the inconvenience (and safety hazard!) of having cables running around the house. They also typically tend to look untidy. For me it'a a decision between a wireless router (which I would need anyway) for $180-odd or an additional $200-$300 to get CAT6 wired up to two (2) rooms in the house w/ 2 sockets per faceplate (and a cheap switch to aggregate it all).
    - jseliger 14y ago
      >w/ 2 sockets per faceplate (and a cheap switch to aggregate it all). Oh—we just run it along baseboards and tape the cords in place.
notatoad 14y ago
This isn't 'wifi'. 60GHz is not practical for general purpose wireless data connections. It's a 7Gbit wireless link, which will be great for beaming something to your TV, or for a wireless bridge link between two buildings, or any of myriad other specific use cases. We don't need that much bandwidth on our wifi, and we certainly don't need the tradeoffs.
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58 points by Libertatea 14y ago

"...with the downside of using frequencies that are easily blocked by walls. Even thin cubicle walls may block signals, Wilocity acknowledged. "

femto 14y ago
That's an asset for a lot of indoor applications, as it allows an independent cell in each room, meaning minimal loss of data capacity due to interference between cells in the same band. You need an access point for each room, but that's okay once the hardware is cheap. For new installations, one can wire a building for data, analogous to wiring for lighting, with access points in place of luminaries. Eventually we will see light fittings with inbuilt 60GHz access points? The usage scenario for 60GHz is similar to infrared. The main advantage of 60GHz being that it able to penetrate a wider range of materials, thus offering better coverage. It will be interesting to see what the patent landscape is for this. I'm hopeful that it will be largely unencumbered, so will become mainstream quickly. The basic system was defined 15-20 years ago, as OFDM based WLAN was always intended to operate in the 60GHz bands [1]. For the last 15-20 years its been a case of waiting for (cheap) radio technology to catch up with, and enable, the original WLAN vision. [1] http://www.sss-mag.com/pdf/97_mmlan.pdf http://www.sss-mag.com/pdf/97_mmlan.pdf
dnu 14y ago
Not good for a house, but very useful for apartments in large buildings. You can have one wireless AP in each room (connected to eachother with wires), and almost no interference from the neighbours.
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  Is there no developing, competing standard that improves on current WiFi without these drawbacks?
  - kbuck 14y ago
    802.11n on the 5GHz band (most implementations use 2.4GHz) already does this. The real problem is the 2.4GHz band, which is simply over-saturated. 2.4GHz also penetrates walls really well, which is a drawback in apartment situations because it introduces more interference from neighboring access points (and many other devices operating on or near the 2.4GHz frequency - wireless phones, microwaves, etc.). I've used a 5GHz 802.11n AP in my last two apartments; it's worked great every time. Most of the time I don't even see any other access points in range. Even if there are other APs, 5GHz has many more frequency bands available, so avoiding interference is simple. The only drawback is that so many devices don't support 5GHz. My smartphone didn't until I upgraded to the SGS III, and my Nook still doesn't. Also, 5GHz is faster because the spec allows 40MHz channels.
    - hayksaakian 14y ago
      So would pushing for 5ghz N be better than 60ghz?
      - joenathan 14y ago
        AC is 5GHz @ 1Gbs and it is already available. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-AC1750-Gigabit-Router/dp/B008ABOJKS/ http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-AC1750-Gig...
        dnu 14y ago
        Yes, but it can also use several channels. This plus the AC standard becoming more popular will lead to overcrowding in 5 GHz also. 2.4 GHz has 3 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels. 5 GHz has about 23 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels. Both go through walls, so you will get interference from neighbouring apartments no matter what technology you implement. The only solutions are to use a much higher frequency, or shield your apartment walls.
JulianMontez 14y ago
That quote is referring to the theoretical 7Gbps speed, not it's standard one.
- CognitiveLens 14y ago
  It's actually the radio frequency itself that doesn't penetrate walls - it's not a bandwidth restriction, so it has nothing to do with theoretical throughput.

FollowSteph3 14y ago

As nice as the speed is, I think the real application is docking stations for mobile devices - think iPhone, android, etc. I take my mobile device with me, put it near a wigi router and all of a sudden I have a wireless keyboard mouse monitors etc all hooked up. No wires required. No setup, nothing!! Very cool for portability!! My friend comes over and they just bring their devices to the table and were using another mobile device fully integrated. The mobile device is a portable brain. Very cool!!

FollowSteph3 14y ago
You could even automtically hook up your phone to your tv, etc. no wires needed. As long as your phone carries everything, it can be hooked up to anything automatically when you step into a room!
jrockway 14y ago
When my computer is not connected to the Internet, I don't have my Wikipedia with me. But when I bring it near my wireless router, suddenly it's all accessible again!

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

I'm looking forward to this. I have two great rooms that may have a dozen active devices at any moment. I'm ok with the single-room applications for both of these common areas. I can imagine a lot of similar places in offices. Cubicles could have antanae attached or be made of a material that is more willing to reflect the beams; much easier than pulling wires.

jseliger 14y ago
>I have two great rooms that may have a dozen active devices at any moment. If any of them are stationary, or mostly stationary, you might just want to run an ethernet cable. Even long ones are dirt cheap from Monoprice. For instance, I wired my iMac, my girlfriend's iMac, and leave a wire at our kitchen table, where laptops are most likely to be used, for about $12 shipped. Transferring video files between machines is now fast, and we don't have interference from neighboring networks (or vice-versa). Ethernet also makes using distributed processing using Compressor (http://documentation.apple.com/en/compressor/usermanual/index.html#chapter=8%26section=6%26tasks=true http://documentation.apple.com/en/compressor/usermanual/inde...) easy.
- elithrar 14y ago
  > If any of them are stationary, or mostly stationary, you might just want to run an ethernet cable. Even long ones are dirt cheap from Monoprice. For instance, I wired my iMac, my girlfriend's iMac, and leave a wire at our kitchen table, where laptops are most likely to be used, for about $12 shipped. I think the issue for most is not the cost of the cables, but the inconvenience (and safety hazard!) of having cables running around the house. They also typically tend to look untidy. For me it'a a decision between a wireless router (which I would need anyway) for $180-odd or an additional $200-$300 to get CAT6 wired up to two (2) rooms in the house w/ 2 sockets per faceplate (and a cheap switch to aggregate it all).
  - jseliger 14y ago
    >w/ 2 sockets per faceplate (and a cheap switch to aggregate it all). Oh—we just run it along baseboards and tape the cords in place.

notatoad 14y ago

This isn't 'wifi'. 60GHz is not practical for general purpose wireless data connections. It's a 7Gbit wireless link, which will be great for beaming something to your TV, or for a wireless bridge link between two buildings, or any of myriad other specific use cases. We don't need that much bandwidth on our wifi, and we certainly don't need the tradeoffs.

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