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Networking Technology

1Gbps Wi-Fi Coming Soon To a Billion Devices 202

MojoKid writes "Not only is 1Gbps technology heading for your Wi-Fi network by next year, it will be instantly über popular. The new 802.11ac 1G Wi-Fi standard hasn't even been ratified by the IEEE yet and In-Stat predicts that by 2015, consumers will have bought nearly 1 billion devices that use it. 1G Wi-Fi, which will use radio spectrum in a range below 6GHz, will be embedded in mobile phones, e-readers and automotive infotainment systems.The study predicts that Mobile devices with embedded Wi-Fi will make up most of the market. In 2015, shipments of mobile phones with embedded Wi-Fi are projected to approach 800 million. Also, by 2015, projections are that 100% of mobile hotspot shipments will be 802.11ac-enabled."
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1Gbps Wi-Fi Coming Soon To a Billion Devices

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  • I just cannot wait (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lpaul55 ( 137990 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @09:23PM (#35146076) Homepage Journal

    Where's the future when we need it?
    I also hope the software for grid networks appears soon. This will help us develop a decentralized alternative to the big ISPs.

    • by Machtyn ( 759119 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @10:01PM (#35146378) Homepage Journal
      Another advantage is that the government will not be able to shutdown the Internet. Egyptian citizens would have an ad hoc network that would still be able to communicate with each other. If the US government gets its kill switch, if the people can't vote the idiots out, then perhaps they'll have a way around the interference.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • by Corbets ( 169101 )

          I think that even in your little fantasy world, you should understand that most countries don't have access to nukes, let alone space tech.

        • by hitmark ( 640295 )

          Jamming trucks would be a more effective means. Jam the frequencies used by the civilian gear but leave open those for the military or similar.

          And if one is clever one can even set up the trucks so that they can triangulate, so that if one want to find a specific transmitter one can open up a local area for a short time (but keep jamming long distance links) to make the device in question send out a handshake. Then one send in the goons.

          Hell, a certain "secret" police used such triangulation to locate spies

          • And I assume a very cheap and simple to deploy solution in a rioting country.
            • by hitmark ( 640295 )

              The plane could be at least. One of those birds (and it could be the size of a civilian jet) could potentially jam a large area from up high. Especially as it is fighting against transmitters designed to be hand held and over over a limited distance (to conserve battery power).

              • Stratellites would be a better option. High-altitude balloons blanketing a specific frequency are quite cheap and easy to produce and can fly above the range of small arms fire quite easily. If your population has access to surface to air missiles, then you probably have bigger problems than them shooting down your balloons (although you could discourage this by filling them with hydrogen and making them out of flammable material, so ones that are shot down turn into falling balls of flame and land on the

          • It's a shame then that they didn't use UWB for this 802.11ac standard, what with it being nearly impossible to effectively Jam.
            Ho Hum maybe for the next standard...

          • by DrXym ( 126579 )
            Jamming trucks would be a more effective means. Jam the frequencies used by the civilian gear but leave open those for the military or similar.

            Trucks with detectors equipement and men in the back with large sticks would be more effective again. Drive around, find an active signal, men jump out the back and smash the kit to bits and beat the shit of anyone running it.

        • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

          And how will you fill your pockets with your people's money if you've just crippled your whole infrastructure?

        • by AC-x ( 735297 )

          Um, what about just making a few phone calls to the local power plants and telling them to shut down? I'd like to see how long everyone's adhoc network survives then, 4 hours? 8 hours?

          • I plug my battery backups into each other. They feed back and forth and can run forever. You can't shut me down!
      • by AC-x ( 735297 )

        Because people couldn't possibly organise protests or spread information without electronic communication. I hope no-one cuts the power or any form of dissent would become impossible!

      • Another advantage is that the government will not be able to shutdown the Internet. Egyptian citizens would have an ad hoc network that would still be able to communicate with each other. If the US government gets its kill switch, if the people can't vote the idiots out, then perhaps they'll have a way around the interference.

        Would this even work? It's been forever since I have taken network communications and I don't have much to do with it day to day. But even if every house in America gets wired up for

  • Might any of the existing or proposed wireless standards be anywhere close to a potential candidate for a decenteralised wifi internet to be built upon?

    • Re:Bigger picture? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ultra64 ( 318705 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @09:40PM (#35146198)
      Here you go [open-mesh.com]
      • by miruku ( 642921 )

        Thanks, although I was after more of a somewhat open project. I mean, I know there is a lot that has been done with more common wifi equipment, but do many folk hack at that kind of level but any of the newer ideas or such?

    • No.

      The higher you go in frequency, the closer you get to line of sight.
      A mesh network made up of pure consumer devices might be possible, but only if you have a sufficient device density.

      I guess, the other alternative would be a mesh with some super nodes / cell towers. Kind of a mix between clearwire and an ad-hoc wireless. As long as the super-nodes would be redundant and wouldn't belong to some company but to individual neighborhoods, that would be still decentralized.

      • "A mesh network made up of pure consumer devices might be possible, but only if you have a sufficient device density. "

        Almost 17 million people dense enough?
        From WP:
        'With a population of 6,758,581[6] spread over 453 square kilometers (175 sq mi), Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. With an additional ten million inhabitants just outside the city, Cairo resides at the centre of the largest metropolitan area in Africa and the eleventh-largest urban area in the world.'

      • The real problem is CPU speed. Imagine a mesh network spanning an entire city. The total time for a radio signal to propagate across the city is, effectively, zero. At the speed of light, it's hard to measure the time it takes. Bandwidth isn't a problem either - if you send the signal in a straight line, that might be saturated, but you can broaden the link by diverting some connections that aren't latency-sensitive to adjacent nodes, so you have two virtual pipes running geographically parallel to each

        • by Ultra64 ( 318705 )

          That's assuming the whole mesh network is fed with only one uplink. Add a few more in various places and performance will improve.

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      Just kit out the country with One Laptop Per Child laptops. All the kiddies will form the mesh for you.
  • "The study predicts that Mobile devices with embedded Wi-Fi will make up most of the market."

    And a particularly nasty virus turns into a digital "Black Plague" wiping out nearly 2/3 of the digital population, thereby kick-starting the Second Middle-Ages.

    • Hey, the Plague did great things for Europe - the drop in population made everyone more wealthy, and also helped workers gain more power and escape from serfdom.

      • "Hey, the Plague did great things for Europe - the drop in population made everyone more wealthy, and also helped workers gain more power and escape from serfdom."

        Were you referring to my fiction, or the real Black Plague?

      • Except that's wrong [pkarchive.org].

        • Hey that's an interesting article. At the end, it asks this:

          And an even bigger question: why hasn't indentured servitude made a comeback in the modern era? Yes, I know, human rights and all that - but if it was profitable to have indentured servants in the modern world, I'm sure that Richard Scaife's think tanks would have no trouble finding justifications, and assorted Christian groups would explain why it's God's will.

          My answer: we've replaced "subsistence" with "I need a new TV, car, holiday, etc." There's a new minimum necessary living standard, called endless consumerism.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Consumerism enriches our lives when taken in moderation. We all want a better standard of living and there is no doubt that owning nice things you can make use of is pleasurable. It pushes science and the development of new beneficial technologies too.

            Yeah, there is the down side when people go too far with it and there do need to be strong rules and protections in place, but I reject the notion that consumerism is inherently bad.

            • I didn't say it was bad, just that it creates an alternative minimum standard. It's a wonder how dependent we are on other's need for an ever more comfortable life.

        • Maybe I'll have to find this paper and read it, but I am not convinced yet. So far I have see a couple of guys argue against that interpretation, and a boatload argue for it (although popular does not always equal right either). And the explanation that guy gives sounds reasonable, but plenty of socioeconomic theories sound reasonable on the surface, while actually being complete nonsense.

    • thereby kick-starting the Second Middle-Ages

      But at the rate technology and society progresses, it will only last 17.6 hours.

  • by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529 AT yahoo DOT com> on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @09:29PM (#35146126)

    ...is that consumers will be purchasing a billion internet-connecting devices in the next five years (sarcasm)...because all the cell phones, laptops, ipads, netbooks, APs, and routers will be instantly headed for a landfill due to the fact that none of the devices we have today are fast enough for our present uses. (/sarcasm) The majority of my friends, family, and clients still have 802.11g routers, and none of them have complained about the speed.

    • Four years (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SpeedyDX ( 1014595 ) <speedyphoenixNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @10:04PM (#35146414)

      Tech products go out of style, whether you like it or not.

      And really, 4 years is a long, LONG time in the tech world. The iPhone and iPod touch weren't even introduced 4 years ago. The last Pentium 4 chip (Cedar Mill) was replaced by the Core 2 (Conroe) only 4 and a half years ago. The top-of-the-line nVidia video card 4 years ago, the GeForce 8800GTX, had 281M transistors. The GTX 480 has 3.2B. Netbooks? Tablets? What?

      Considering how many devices each of us has, and with a 4 year time frame, I don't think buying a billion wifi enabled products is out of the question. In fact, it might even be low-balling it.

      • And really, 4 years is a long, LONG time in the tech world. The iPhone and iPod touch weren't even introduced 4 years ago.

        4 years also isn't all that long.

        I have a brand new motherboard that has an RS-232 serial port and a parallel port on the back panel. Even more surprising, I considered this a feature because I just bought a brand new device that hooks up via a serial port.

        My keyboard still has Scroll Lock and SysRq. I think Scroll Lock might do something in Excel. I never had any idea what SysRq is for.

        I still use Windows XP at work and it's the only Windows I have at home. My laptop is about a year old and that's what it

    • Yea...I haven't bought a new router in...well, when I bought it, 54mpbs 802.11g was brand new, cutting-edge stuff. I think that was 6+ years ago. I'm not planning on getting a new one any time soon. Why should I? Router already delivers almost 10x the speed of my internet connection. I don't do file transfers over the network frequently enough to care, it's compatible with EVERYTHING, and...well, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

      • by afidel ( 530433 )
        Because it doesn't support IPv6 so if you want to do anything that requires NAT today you will need to switch at some point in the next couple years.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I love my trusty WRT54G v 1.1. I love it enough to know the model and make of it without looking at it. I've run DD-WRT and Tomato on it and I currently use it as a wireless bridge (a use for which the original firmware never intended).

          is that really true? every Linksys AP I've ever owned has had a bridge mode.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Speed isn't the problem for most people, range is. Older buildings are particularly bad. I need two access points to cover my entire house.

        I also noticed that almost everyone else in the are is on the default channel 11. As such it is barely usable, but I am fine on channel 3. Most routers have an "auto" channel selection mode but it doesn't seem to work.

        Forget speed, give us better coverage and better selection of channels.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      Ha, I still have and use 802.11b WAP and a few wireless devices. My Internet doesn't even go that fast. :/

  • The fine print. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Anyone care to guess what actual throughput will be? If 802.11n is any guide, I'm guessing roughly 10-20% of what's advertised.

  • Of course, the real question is what's the real life performance of 1 Gbit wireless... Better or worse than 100 Mbit wired? I'm not hopeful based on existing implementations of a/b/g/n wireless.

    • Depending on your distance from the access point, it may very well push close to 1Gb/s in terms of sheer bandwidth. However, I think we can expect to see the same sort of latency we've had since 802.11b/g that makes Wi-Fi “feel” slower than anything wired.

    • by BillX ( 307153 )

      Yes and yes. The article in Electronic Design has a bit more technical meat; unfortunately it as about as you suspect. Terms like "4x4 MIMO" and channel bonding come up a lot (basically, achieving the stated throughput by tying up several channels at a time / expanding the per-channel bandwidth); Shannon's Sampling Theorem still applies. It'll work great in the wilderness; your throughput in an apartment building full of other 802.11ac routers hogging 4 channels at a time is still going to suck.

  • Mostly unnecessary (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gstrickler ( 920733 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @09:39PM (#35146190)

    Mostly the extra throughput will not be used. What is the real throughput anyway?

    Unless you're streaming from a local server, your internet connection will be the bottleneck, and most of those can't saturate 802.11a/g. Even the highest speed FIOS & DOCCIS 3 rates can't quite saturate 802.11n.

    The range will be more limited (5-6GHz doesn't propagate through walls as well as 2.4GHz). In dense environments, that's an advantage, but 802.11a/n on 5GHz already has that benefit.

    A big issue with any wireless technology is latency. Higher modulation rates help that a bit, but most of the latency is in making sure it's safe for you to transmit, not in the actual transmission.

    If you have a use case that needs higher throughput than 802.11n and isn't latency sensitive, then this will be a benefit, but for 99+% of users, it's completely unnecessary.

    • by Kenja ( 541830 )
      Faster porn from Starbucks.
    • In dense environments, that's an advantage, but 802.11a/n on 5GHz already has that benefit.

      A big issue with any wireless technology is latency. Higher modulation rates help that a bit, but most of the latency is in making sure it's safe for you to transmit, not in the actual transmission.

      If you have a use case that needs higher throughput than 802.11n and isn't latency sensitive, then this will be a benefit, but for 99+% of users, it's completely unnecessary.

      Corporate networks and venues.

      I work in an office where 90% of the users have laptops that they carry around with them, and many of them don't even bother to dock them at their desk until they need power. There's a lot of users using the wireless at all times. Granted, must of the time the bandwidth requirements aren't high, but they are sometimes. And when you increase the total available bandwidth, you decrease the latency for if your used bandwidth stays the same, and that's important.

      Venues are the o

      • Agreed, those are the situations where it could make a difference. However, you can get 50%-80% of that benefit now by running 802.11a/n on 5GHz. And as long as the number of 802.11a devices running on those channels exceeds about 20%, the benefits will be limited regardless if it's running 802.11n or 802.11ac. So it is essentially pointless unless they're giving is a separate band of channels, and last I heard, there weren't any available in that 6GHz range. In theory, it'll provide benefits long term, but
        • 60% (using the the maximum 600Mbps number). However that ignores the 802.11a devices out there, as well as the improvements in modulation theory that have been made in the past several years. There is also the discussion of how the frequencies react in the real world for the 5GHz, and whatever mythical range this new system uses. The 2.4 range is far better than the 5 range for wireless, except that there's so much blasted interference and legacy devices.

          And finally, with this new specification that have

          • My point exactly.

            BTW, I've seen nothing to suggest that this would get a new RF range, given that all frequencies below 6Ghz are already allocated, it's extremely unlikely that this would get a new range, it will almost certainly share the 5-5.8GHz range used by 802.11a/n, cordless phones, etc. So, you have the issue of having to share the range with any nearby 5GHz devices. From what I have seen, it will need up to 160MHz (8 x 20MHz channels) to achieve those speeds. In most of the world, including the US,

            • by Omestes ( 471991 )

              , so you might be able to get 600Mbps, which you can already get using 802.11n

              Which would be an improvement over 802.11n, since I've never seen anything close to 600Mbps on my network. I live in a modern house, with tons of drywall (not brick), and my computer is around 50-60' from the router, with relative LOS (only one other network straddling 50% my band); transfering from this computer to one hardwired to the router I'm impressed when I get to half that.

              • 600Mbps is modulation rate, not throughput. 802.11ac will not significantly improve throughput vs 802.11n. Throughput is likely to remain around 180-200Mbps for a 600Mbps modulation rate.
    • by Mr. DOS ( 1276020 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @10:27PM (#35146540)

      I think the biggest advantage of more throughput, at least on the AP side, is that Wi-Fi bandwidth is shared. Unlike 100Mb/s wired networking where each port on a switch gives the client 100Mb/s (full-duplex or otherwise), the 54Mb/s of bandwidth 802.11g provides is shared between all clients connected to the AP – that's why having an appropriate number of APs is so crucial for a Wi-Fi network of any size. With 802.11ac, even if clients are connecting at a lower rate of speed, that's still more bandwidth to go around.

      Disclaimer: IANANG (I Am Not A Network Guy); who knows, technology may've changed (it seems to do that) and I may just be talking out of my ass.

      • by gstrickler ( 920733 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @11:07PM (#35146892)

        I am a network guy. Your statement is correct, except for the "even if clients are connecting at a lower rate of speed, that's still more bandwidth to go around" part. Technically, that's accurate, but the reality is that a single lower speed device can use so much of the time that the amount available to a high speed device is negligible. This shows up in mixed b/g/n Wi-Fi networks, mixed a/n Wi-Fi networks, and in USB connections.

        Because RF bandwidth is limited, presumably these devices will share the channels used by 802.11a/n in the 5-6GHz range. Therefore, the presence of existing 802.11a devices will limit the bandwidth available (802.11n devices @ 5GHz will limit it too, but less so). If you're willing to disable all 802.11a devices and not allow them to connect to a base station, then there will be notably more bandwidth available, but that may not be practical. In either case, 802.11n running in the 5GHz band will provide most of the same benefits. You can get 50%-80% of the benefits with existing 802.11n technology, that's why I said it's mostly useless, not completely useless.

        • If you're willing to disable all 802.11a devices and not allow them to connect to a base station, then there will be notably more bandwidth available, but that may not be practical.

          How much 802.11a is actually in use? I've never seen any. I have only ever had one NIC which would do it and cheap APs don't do it.

    • Mostly the extra throughput will not be used. What is the real throughput anyway?

      I have a feeling it will be very well used. When everybody's TV comes with 802.11ac and so does their laptop, dvr, raid box, smart phone, security cameras etc you can bet there will be a lot of video streaming around everywhere.

      You will be able to touch a button and have the output from your iPad display on your 50" tv.

    • by somenickname ( 1270442 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @11:21PM (#35146974)

      Mostly the extra throughput will not be used. What is the real throughput anyway?

      Unless you're streaming from a local server, your internet connection will be the bottleneck, and most of those can't saturate 802.11a/g. Even the highest speed FIOS & DOCCIS 3 rates can't quite saturate 802.11n.

      I'm not so sure. I think this technology might not be useful for the opposite reason.

      I've got a 100Mbit/15Mbit DOCCIS 3 line connected to a Linksys E3000 that sits about 10 feet from where I usually use my laptop (5Ghz N) and it's like Internet Nirvana. It's well matched and good hardware with bandwidth that is surprisingly delivered as advertised. However, it's only delivered as advertised because of diligence on my part. Twice now (NEVER reboot your DOCCIS 3 modem), I've been mysteriously bumped down to a 30mbit/5mbit connection. I've called to complain both times and, to my ISPs credit, both times when I've said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I've properly tested the line and it's 30/5", they've immediately put me through to a proper network engineer who, while obviously annoyed, did things like put a large file on a server that was 1-ish hops away and said, "FTP that over and see what you get". I was stunned. And the problems were resolved.

      Having said that, most people I know have ISP issued routers and wouldn't even know how to test their connection speed to the router or the internet in general. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that half of them have upgraded to connection speeds that not a single computer in their house can actually achieve over wireless because they are using shitty ISP issued D-Link wireless-g routers that they tuck away in the place least conducive to actually getting a good wireless connection. The ISPs know this and certainly aren't going to start issuing 1Gbit wireless routers that will allow people to actually take advantage of the speeds they are paying for with every device in their house.

    • by jasonwc ( 939262 )

      I can only get 40 Mbit (5 MB/sec) on my 802.11n wireless router. However, I routinely get my rated speed of 50 Mbit/sec (6.2 MB/sec) down from my DOCSIS 3.0 connection, which peaks of 8 MB/sec. Of course, such connections are a rarity. Nonetheless, Gigabit ethernet is cheap and is far more reliable than wireless. Wireless connections just can't maintain multiple, high-throughput connections while wired ethernet can.

      Also, I can easily get local transfers over my gigabit LAN that surpass 100 MB/sec. Unlike 80

      • by MogNuts ( 97512 )

        I'm with you. In my next house I will *wire* the whole thing, and make conduits just in case I need to easily upgrade past whatever comes out after cat 6. I've used wireless for a few years now (whenever N just came out). I will never do it again.

        The setup was a nightmare (half my computers would not work for unknown reasons), the range is awful (I needed to get repeaters--people forget this if you live in anything larger than a 2 bedroom), latency is atrocious (think 300ms vs. 50). And that's with N, not g

  • Great. Now how about higher speeds for my LAN? 1 gigabit is too slow for what I need (I know it's fine for most) and 10 gigabit is cost prohibitive. It's cheaper to set up a LAN using Infiniband than 10 gigabit Ethernet.

    • A reasonable alternative to 10Gbps over Cat6e is direct attached SFP.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_Gigabit_Ethernet#SFP.2B_Direct_Attach [wikipedia.org]

      You find a 10 gig switch with SFP ports and a few 10 gig SFP cards for your computers, and connect them using cables that have SFP connectors on the end. You limit your distance versus other methods, but it's perfect if you just need to hook a few systems together that are in the same room or two.

      • by afidel ( 530433 )
        DA even with active cables has a max length of 10m making it unsuitable for anything but top of rack usage. 10Gbase-T will probably become more prevalent when Intel builds it into their SandyBridge-EP chipset this fall, and heck they already dropped the price per server port to a quarter of what it was a few months ago with their new adapters.
        • 10m is certainly long enough for systems in the same room. From system to switch to system it's 20m, which is 65ft. Less than half that distance between my desktop and server in the office. It's not going to make it to my HTPC in the living room, but gigabit is far more than I need there already. (I'm assuming the OP is talking about a home LAN, which isn't specified at all anywhere.) But yeah, in a corporate environment it isn't terribly useful unless your desktops share a wall with the datacenter.

          • by hoggoth ( 414195 )

            OP here. It's for my office, but it is specifically for several workstations and a Solaris ZFS file server that are all in the same room. 10m will work there.

  • ... most of those devices will run well only with ipv4. Anyway, they will be sold like pancakes, after all, what you want is more speed, not reaching anywhere.
  • Slashdot? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Charliemopps ( 1157495 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2011 @10:37PM (#35146612)
    If I have a 1gig wireless connection, will it still take a full 10 seconds after I click "Submit" for Slashdot to accept my post?
  • The speed is meaningless for most, but it's something that will help get people purchasing new equipment. They need some incentive; almost none of the consumer-grade routers currently in use are ipv6 capable.

  • Why the heck would I buy 1G wireless in the future when I can buy 3G and even 4G wireless right now? They'll probably be up to at least 5G by then.

  • I haven't looked, but isn't there anything 2ghz? Really all those high frequencies suck for wall penetration...

  • I'm not really sure this is as important as TFA suggests. However, it could potentially open up HD TV streaming. As far as I know, that's not possible on 54Mbps wireless (even if you have it entirely to yourself), so a bandwidth increase would make it possible.

    Truthfully though, my phone (for example) isn't bottlenecked by the wifi speed, it's bottlenecked by it's own ability to put things on the screen and request the next thing it needs. I doubt it'll need 1Gbps for a good few years. In many ways, neither

  • At first the concept of gigabit wireless made me laugh, knowing that 99% of the devices could not possibly process one billion bytes per second, no matter what the hardware bandwidth was. Then, remembering that I never got more than 10% of theoretical throughput on a GOOD day over 802.11b, g, and draft n, I realized this is a Good Thing after all. Maybe we will get 50-100 actual megabits over this so-called gigabit link, and that would be a vast improvement over what we have had to date.

  • Wireless-N is nice and all, but I'm still using G and my WRT-54GL, and don't feel a need to upgrade to N. My hardware should be expiring right when AC goes into general distribution. Maybe that's the reason for the prediction, that a lot of people are happy (for now) with G and N isn't that big of a step up.

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