Despite the fact that IEEE 802.11n 100Mbps wireless LAN standard has not been approved yet, the IEEE Very High Throughput (VHT) Study Group is about to launch a new project, gigabit Wi-Fi.
The study group is looking at gigabit Wi-Fi in two frequency bands, high-frequency 60GHz for relatively short ranges and under-6GHz for ranges similar to that of today’s WLANs in the 5GHz band, 802.11a and 11n. The IEEE proposal suggests a completion target date of 2013 for the standard. Big wireless players such as Atheros, Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, Motorola, and Nortel are reported to be active in the study group.
In a Network World article, IEEE readies launch of gigabit Wi-Fi project “The basic idea right now, and that’s subject to change, is that the ‘maximum mandatory mode’ on a single link would be [at least] 500Mbps,” says Tushar Moorti, director of systems architecture for chipmaker Broadcom‘s (AVGO) WLAN Business Unit. “But the further requirement is that [an access point] device that supports VHT would be able to sustain multiple links, so the aggregate would be over 1Gbps.”
“It’s the next-generation technology for wireless LAN, in the same sense that 11n was the follow-on to 11a/b/g,” says Broadcom’s Moorti.
According to the proposal, VHT “will allow a corporate or home user to roam from high-throughput dense cells to wider area networks in a seamless manner, while maintaining full support for the installed base security, management, diagnostics, and backbone infrastructure.” VHT will also be backward compatible with the full range of existing and emerging 802.11 standards, such as 11i for security, and 11s for mesh networking.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
