Future of Wi-Fi is Faster, but Proximity Matters

The resurgence of Wi-Fi continues. We’ve been following the progress of point-to-point Wi-Fi Direct for several months, but there’s also another lesser-known innovation in the works for the 25-year-old technology. The WiGig Alliance (WGA) is working on adding a new frequency band to Wi-Fi to enable faster speeds over short distances. The 60GHz band could support speeds up to 7Gbps across the span of a room, enabling such juicy applications as in-home wireless networking of uncompressed HD video.

Earlier this month, the WGA made its 1.0 spec available to a wider pool of vendors that are willing to agree to royalty-free licensing terms. Better yet, the WGA is working directly with the Wi-Fi Alliance to create a certification program for the wireless technology.

Meanwhile, certification testing for Wi-Fi Direct is set to begin in Q3. Many companies aren’t waiting, however, but instead pushing forward with the technology even in its un-certified state. Chip-maker Atheros is the latest to do so, announcing work with Acer just this morning to bring PCs to market with embedded Wi-Fi Direct capabilities.