Current WiFi speed not enough? Here’s good news to you.

Admit it. No amount of WiFi speed was ever satiating enough. But the latest developments seem to have a cure for the speed-hungry internet users. When 802.11ac WiFi started showing up in 2013 with its theoretical range of 1.3 Gbps devices, we were convinced that that this would be the fasted speed for the next few years.

But do you know that faster is on the way? And sooner that you would anticipate, too. How would you like to have a connectivity of 7 Gbps of Wi-Fi data? No kidding. You will soon.

We can expect it to meet its theoretically determined value, but anything about 5 Gbps is surely a reasonable speed, you must admit. According to the IEEE, 802.11ac 2013 “adds channel bandwidths of 80 MHz and 160 MHz with both contiguous and non-contiguous 160 MHz channels for flexible channel assignment.” 802.11ac uses larger channels of about 80 MHz wide. But the downside is that this broad channel may not be convenient for multiple access points and hence will lead to wireless traffic jams. The most important change that will be seen is that the new IEEE 802.11ac “introduces a revolutionary new technology to support multiple concurrent down-link transmissions, referred to as ‘multi-user multiple-input, multiple-output’ (MU MIMO). By using smart antenna technology, MU MIMO enables more efficient spectrum use, higher system capacity and reduced latency by supporting up to four simultaneous user transmissions. This is particularly useful for client devices with a limited number of antennas, such as smartphones and tablets.”

(Image courtesy of Netgear.)

We can expect companies, academic centers and different fields that use extensive and excessive computers to shift from wired Ethernet networks, which is typically 1Gbps, to WiFi, given that higher speed is feasible now in an environment of mobility and less wiring.