Much faster Wi-Fi coming soon

[Hum]

The latest Wi-Fi technology, called "802.11ac," offers speeds of up to 1.3 Gigabits per second. That's fast enough to transfer an entire high-definition movie to a tablet in under 4 minutes, share photo albums with friends in a matter of seconds or stream three HD videos at the same time. It's more than double the top speed of the previous standard, known as 802.11n.

 Those speeds are theoretical maximums -- very few people have anything close to 1 Gigabit speeds from their home broadband connection. Average speeds are less than 1% of that. But the faster speeds mean the new Wi-Fi standard will offer a much bigger pipeline for all those videos, songs and games that a growing number of people are streaming on multiple devices simultaneously.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, a global organization that ensures the interoperability of Wi-Fi technologies, began certifying so-called "ac" devices Wednesday. It kicked off the certification program by signing off on 19 routers, access points, microchips and smartphones. The shortlist of certified devices includes the Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 and routers from Cisco and Netgear.

 

The new standard aims to solve those problems. It allows more devices to simultaneously connect to a network without a degradation in performance. It also features lower latency times for streaming music and gaming, where network hiccups and delays can ruin a user's experience. And the latest Wi-Fi standard helps deliver streaming videos more reliably, even when the network is being used by other devices.

 

As an added bonus, 802.11ac requires devices to have support for two bands of airwaves, which will help to reduce interference. And it requires less power consumption from smartphones, tablets and PCs when they're transmitting data.

more

[xendrome]

AC has been around for 2 years, this is an example of the media being technology-ignorant. Just because the AC standard was certified they post about it now.

[Hum]

^ Sometimes you need to read the 'more':

 

Only a handful of Wi-Fi devices feature the new "ac" technology.

 

A new, faster version of Wi-Fi was officially rubber-stamped Wednesday.

Shipments of ac Wi-Fi devices began last year, but they remain very hard to find.

[TPreston]

Is it still half duplex and "shared" bandwidth ?

[MorganX]

AC has been around for 2 years, this is an example of the media being technology-ignorant. Just because the AC standard was certified they post about it now.

 

I'm going to agree with you here. But since they are now officially certifying devices, maybe USB 3.0 adapters will turn up.

[Crisp]

Nothing can beat the CAT cable.

[TPreston]

Nothing can beat the CAT cable.

Teamed gigabit Ethernet = win

[Crisp]

Teamed gigabit Ethernet = win

 

(Y) I retrack what I said, I guess fibre can beat it :P

[xendrome]

^ Sometimes you need to read the 'more':

 

Only a handful of Wi-Fi devices feature the new "ac" technology.

 

A new, faster version of Wi-Fi was officially rubber-stamped Wednesday.

Shipments of ac Wi-Fi devices began last year, but they remain very hard to find.

 

If you consider going on Amazon.com and typing in "Wireless AC Adapter" "hard to find" then ok,

 

The ONLY thing that changed Wednesday was the fact that they signed off on the final spec..

[+Elі Subscriber²]

I own the Netgear R6300 A/C router featured on top of the article, owned it for close to a year already, loving it so far.

[Growled Member]

Before long my wifi is going to be faster than my broadband. :D

[Quillz]

So many Wi-Fi networks in my area are still on either "b" or "g." I'm still the only one on my block with a "n" connection.

[MS Bob 11]

You can consider yourself lucky if you get actual throughput close to 100 MB/s. :P Wireless N was a BIG disappointment.

[neo1911]

They mention Galaxy Note 2. Does that mean my Note 2 already has Wireless AC chip in it and Samsung were waiting for certification? Will it be enabled in a software update?? Questions questions questions. ..

[The Evil Overlord]

How fast a speed can one achieve with Cat7 cables?

(might be worth looking into once this becomes mainstream if it's faster)

<though I like cabled connections, no risk of wifi dropouts>

[Crisp]

How fast a speed can one achieve with Cat7 cables?

(might be worth looking into once this becomes mainstream if it's faster)

<though I like cabled connections, no risk of wifi dropouts>

 

The problems with cables like CAT7 is they have a very limited bend radius. Unless you run the cable completely straight, you're gonna lose speed once you bend it, or in some cases it wont work at all.

 

If you ever wanted to achieve 10G speeds, you may as well go fibre.

[FloatingFatMan]

They mention Galaxy Note 2. Does that mean my Note 2 already has Wireless AC chip in it and Samsung were waiting for certification? Will it be enabled in a software update?? Questions questions questions. ..

 

I was just wondering that very same thing...

[MorganX]

Just upgraded DSL Modem/Gateway to Netgear D6200. Using a Belkin AC USB 2.0 Adapter. Fluctuating from 433Mbs to 702Mbs. Of course, USB 2.0 maxes at 480Mbs so, not going to get that throughput. Still significantly faster than the 300Mbs connection previously. Can stream Netflix HD while streaming ESPN Vids and web browsing with no hiccups. The concurrent use is probably the biggest benefit. This is a867+300 Dual Band. The few USB 3.0 adapters for some reason max at 433 so no need to get one yet.

 

Even the doggish iTunes store got a significant boost. It's nice for the low-band to be 300Mbs 11n, instead of 11g. Even though the iPhone 5 seems much faster on the 5Ghz than it did on the previous 11n @ 5Ghz though it is still 11n.

[Undead Steve]

I bought the Buffalo AC router that was one of the first to come out a little over a year ago. I was actually really disappointing at first, had terrible reliability and only OK speeds, but after a few firmware updates, the thing is kicking. I'm still not overly impressed with the range of it, but speed and reliability are the best I've had in a router!

Now if only Charter's service wasn't s crappy, I could really take advantage of this thing :s