Not Just Faster Wi-Fi - Blazingly Fast Wi-Fi is Headed to your Home and to Small Businesses

What do startups WIlocity, Beam Networks and Peraso Technologies have in common? They are each on their way to developing the next generation of Wi-Fi. Today Wi-Fi runs on either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band, and both have now been around for many years. With an upper bound of roughly 600 MBPS for the five GHz devices, Wi-Fi has long delivered a robust and more than adequately fast wireless capability. The utility provided by Wi-Fi has driven a remarkable amount of Internet usage both inside the home and within every level of business, whether an SMB or a Fortune 500 company.

That said, we are about to hit a Wi-Fi wall – with numerous new technologies now using Wi-Fi (think for example Blu-Ray quality wireless data streaming, multi-person wireless video conferencing, video streaming to WiFi-enabled TVs, high end video games, numerous tablets and smartphones accessing the Internet, and so on) – we’re finally running out of capacity for both wireless network speed and total numbers of connected wireless devices.

Anyone who knows what a significant improvement 5 GHz Wi-Fi was when it first arrived will next have the opportunity to marvel at what the next generation will bring – the use of the 60 GHz band delivering up to 7 GBPS of wireless data speed. The Wi-Fi chips to deliver this enormous leap in wireless capacity and speed will soon be available, and the companies noted above are moving as quickly as possible to deliver them.

We can also anticipate that the new products will be far more energy efficient and consume much less power (increasing battery life substantially).As the 60 GHz band and its upper bound of 7 GHz wireless speed becomes available we will begin to see new wireless personal connections, such as those, for example, between a very fast external storage device and, say, a lightweight Ultrabook.

Wilocity, a well-funded Israeli-based startup is working with both Marvell and Qualcomm to deliver next generation chips. The chipsets that will emerge from the Wilocity partnerships, as well as those from Beam and Peraso will all be tri-band chipsets, meaning that they will support 2.5 GHz, 5 GHz and 60 GHz. Routers built on the tri-band chipsets will be completely backwards compatible with many millions of older Wi-Fi adaptors and will allow environments to mix and match between older devices and those supporting the 60 GHz.band.

Actual routers will likely not be available until early 2014, although we’ve heard that shipping in time for the 2013 holiday buying season is a goal – at least from a marketing and sales perspective. Once the routers become available, the 60 GHz band will create opportunities to connect from increasing distances and increasing density at relatively low cost, especially if the need for wireless access points shrinks. At 60 GHz and 7 GBPS, Wi-Fi will emerge as a more robust environment and a legitimate replacement for wired networks.

Want to learn more about today’s powerful mobile Internet ecosystem? Then be sure to attend the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct. 2-5 2012, in Austin, TX. Co-sponsored by TMC Partner Crossfire Media the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo provides unmatched networking opportunities and a robust conference program representing the mobile ecosystem. The conference not only brings together the best and brightest in the wireless industry, it actually spans the communications and technology industry. For more information on registering for the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo click here.

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