IEEE will push next 802.11 to 1Gbps speeds, two-letter designations in 2012
By Tim Stevens 
posted December 8th 2009 10:02AM
posted December 8th 2009 10:02AM
posted December 8th 2009 10:02AM
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This is really exciting news! I can't wait for that.
I remember the pre-802.11 day sitting out on the back patio with my laptop connected to the Internet. It was through one of those giant battery packs that clipped onto the back of your monitor, worked like a cordless phone, and transmitted at 14.4kbps. I remember how excited I was when 802.11b arrived on the scene. I gladly forked out $300 for a wireless access point (without a router) and $200 for each wireless PCMCIA card. Back then Linksys customer service reps actually answered the phones right away when you called.
@timallard
soon here will be internet runin only WIRELESSLY ! NO CABLES AT ALL JUST ONE CABLE SHOULD STAY acoording rght hand and that is
H-D-M-I !!!
@Evoss
You misspelled displayport
And incidentally HDMI| is going wireless too.
I'll be soo pissed if the world ends the second I plug in a router with gigabit wifi.
@Jacob1
i'll be pissed if it doesn't end! i mean with all this mass hysteria about it, something better go down!
Don't know what to do with the extra speed?! 1080P streaming porn confirmed.
Streaming HD content to my xbox 360. I'll hold off that wireless N router now for a little longer methinks.
@iamnotafish
Don't you need a XBOX Live gold membership for that? lol
What you should do is just buy a $299 PS3, get a wrt310n, setup a media server with PS3 media server, and stream MKV's!
HD answer solved.... for now..
@DeFlanko
a) No
b) That doesn't solve his problem. The PS3 has built-in a G wireless and if you've ever tried to stream HD to your PS3 over wifi, then you know that it's a long process. You basically have to wait an hour for a 2 hour movie to preload up enough to watch it without pausing. So, his "option" of buying a ~$80 addon to something he already has (for his 360), or $400 in new technology that still doesn't do what he wants...
c) You're an idiot.
4) lawlz
@DeFlanko I have that setup and does it does not work so well esp if you're playing h264 (mp4) blu-ray rips.
Unless you're streaming from a dedicated media server with high processing power it lag's like a b*tch.
Find it easier to copy the files onto a sd card or just put in a disc.
@replies
Well, I was more thinking about a way to get media via TVersity from my PC to my xbox. I find with a cable connection, its fine. But as soon as it goes wireless, all kinds of problems crop up.
@iamnotafish I use PS3 media server to stream to my 360, and PS3. I have a linksys WRT600N and 2 linksys WET610N and I'm able to stream 1080p mkv's with no wires. There is an rare stutter, but it works as good as a wired connection. This only works on the 5ghz spectrum, 2.4ghz only worked with 720p mkv's for me. Also you have to stream from a machine thats >= a core 2 duo, and turn off any p2p software your running on the network.
PS3 Media Server is > TVersity, in my experience. PS3MS also works with XBMC, so anyone with a modded xbox or appleTV which can't play 1080p video natively can convert on the fly. I use Orb 2.0 for streaming over the web, which PS3MS currently does not support.
@unverified
I stream HD movies to my PS3 all the time, and it sure as hell doesn't take an hour. I don't know what's wrong with your setup or computer skills.
The PS3's included G wifi adaptor is very handy. It really should have been included in the 360. If you really need that extra speed, you can always use ethernet, but I never seem to need to. I have nice pings on games and all my media flows quite nicely. It's not as good as blu-ray movies, of course, but if you want that kind of quality the PS3 is still your best option.
Now, if only the PS3 had some of those 360 exclusives...
Funny. I must admit!
If we are even alive in 2012... (sarcasm)
meh, 802.11n is slow, supposeldly 300mbps but i only get 6.2mb/s. with my 802.11g 54mbps i got 3.1mb/s, still WAY slower than a 10/100 ethernet's 11mb/s speed. My Linksys WRT320N gigabit router gives me 41mb/s between my gigabit pc's with good harddrives, which is pretty good, if they can make wireless towards that speed i'd be happy but 6.2mb/s with 802.11n from about 10m away from the downstairs router is pretty pitiful:(
@(Unverified) keep in mind the differences between the two speeds. The theoretical maximum 300 Mbps (Megabits per second) and since there are 8 bits in a byte, you are getting speeds of 6.2 MBps (Megabytes per second). You just divide the "Mbps" speed by 8. When I do file transfers, sometimes I hit 13 MBps or so (104 Mbps). Actual thoroughput is 50 - 144 Mbps due to overhead and interference that usually happens depending on which frequency you use.
In that case, you might try changing your router's frequency or find something that might be interfering with your signal. It also depends on how close you are to the router.
Either way, 1 Gbps brings ~125 MBps and even if we reach half of that, we are already pushing the write speeds on some hard drives right now. I'm down for that
@(Unverified) And don't forget as well, if you're using IPv4 you really shouldn't expect the full theoretical speed of your wired/wireless link. studies have shown that even on a wired gigabit link when you factor in the overhead required for IPv4 your DATA only ends up moving at about 300mbps - 400mbps. A lot of the network speed meters out there that you can download factor in overhead to give a more realistic view of the speed of your transfer, hence the low numbers. If/When we ever get the net and local networks on IPv6 we should see some real throughput increases...
It's really all relative though. Either your streaming works well or it doesn't...no matter what the numbers say you can SEE the difference. And the newer tech is generally faster than the older tech, however fast the older stuff might have been...
802.11acegf coming to you in 2500?!!
don't worry the IEEE will be working on it for 7 years.
HDMI is around 10Gbps
So we'd need more than 1gbps to do wireless HD video and audio right?
Unless it were compressed I guess...
@Chris Aversa
HDMI is a cable capable of 10Gbps.
HD content, does not require 10Gbps, is usually compressed into an .mkv container, which can cut the file size down dramatically.
@Chris Aversa
(1920*1080) pixel per frame* 24 bits/pixel*30 frame per second= 1.492992 Gbps add to that 5 audio channel each 6.4 Mbps and it will be 1.524992 Gbps . Giving simple 2:1 or even 3:1 Lossless compression ratio; this can easily fit into 1Gbps channel easily even with overhead.
@Ahmed Alzayani
Cool, thanks! Just curious, what codecs do lossless compression at that ratio? I'm talking about Dolby Master HD 7.1 channel audio, and a 1080p picture that has no visible compression artifacts. Feasable over 1gbps?
@Chris Aversa OTA HD is about 25mbit/s, most HD from online is around 10mbit/s, and satellite or cable HD is 15-20mbit/s, so wireless N can handle it in good conditions.
@Ahmed
You won't get 1Gbps application-level throughput with the new standard. You'll probably be looking at around 400Mbps under good conditions.
The 1Gbps refers to raw theoretical maximum throughput. In 802.11g (which had a stated throughput of 54Mbps) the design of the MAC limited the achievable throughput to about 24Mbps, even under ideal conditions. In practice, of course, 5-6Mbps was usual. In 802.11n, the max theoretical throughput of 300Mbps in current devices (next gen will be 600) generally delivers about 40-70Mbps in common situations. This was due to improvements in the MAC and a general increasing of resource usage elsewhere (namely double width channels, spatial multiplexing and slightly more efficient modulation).
In conclusion, then, the chances of getting uncompressed HD over the new standard are almost nil.
@Chris Aversa
It's certainly going to be possible to stream excellent HD over 802.11n, let alone the new standard. A good quality Blu-ray typically delivers H.264 compressed video at < 40Mbps with imperceptible coding artefacts, so there's little point in insisting on uncompressed video. Even at 20Mbps and below, a good codec will produce excellent looking video even in the most demanding of sequences.
I'm not so sure about audio but it's almost certain that the required bitrate will be fairly insignificant compared with the video rate.
Seriously, if they want us to BUY HDWIFI... they need to make it over 50 ft with 1080p (50/1080p) say it with me...
cause realistically with 50ft distances you can pass though two walls.
and then a secondary band much like the A band... repeating ability, and seamless networking.
ohh and under 200 bucks per device, and usb 2.0-3.0 dongles under 50 bucks.
what else...
@DeFlanko loli pops plz
@(Unverified)
and cookies
@DeFlanko
Don't forget the 2 topless blondes and an Asian chick in a school girl uniform that have to deliver it to my door.
I can't wait for 802.11smiley!
Someone please correct me but isnt WIMAX shown as 802.11w ? The picture paints a different....errr...picture!
@Munk I don't think WiMax broadcasts on 802.11. I believe it broadcasts on 802.16a/e/d.
@N900 It seems I was under false impressions. thnx for clearing that up :)
I can see confusions with two letter designations. A lot of manufacturers already lists devices as 802.11ag for A and G, even some gone as far as having 802.11agn.
So before we know it, we will get 802.11wtf?
@ToniCipriani Yeah, I agree that there are a CRAP load of lettering going on with 802.11. But most of these are the amendments passed for IEEE's current and future operations. Here is a list of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11x#Standard_and_amendments
Why not just start with a new number? Or get rid of the pointless number designation altogether for some more recognizable name?
Like WiNet_I, WiNet_II, etc?
If you have branching formats for different reasons give them subcategories like WiNet_Admin_1?
I dunno. It's confusing either way with so many types. I'm still not sure what 'A' was and wonder about the other 20 letters I don't know about.
"That's more wireless bandwidth than we'd know what to do with right now, but we'll find a way to use it. We always do. Together."
Are you kidding me? , i need 1gbps now:
1. Large capacity witless external Hard drives will be more logical. faster read/right, reasonable backup time.
2. REAL Wireless Display with Hi-Res
3. 1080p@30FPS steaming with about only 1:2 compression
@Ahmed Alzayani
Yeah lol. I mean, we sure found plenty of uses for the 1 Gbps cabled connections... Why would wireless be any different? I'm still waiting for wireless HDMI or something so that the devices can "just work" without any video/audio cables. Oh, and voice control like in 'I, Robot', kthnx.
802.11OMG!
Can't wait for Wi-Fi Smiley! It's going to be all the rage!
So we can expact draft 1 or draft 2 in 2012? With a finalized spec some time in 2021.
This is great news. Now I hope they can beam us like Scotty does on Star Trek. But that a different story for another time, still wireless transportation is awesome. I hope it's still not 802.11 for transportation. haha
On a serious note, technology really gets old pretty fast. Just when I'm waiting for wireless n to drop this holidays. So as the other products this season. Oh well, I guess that's the life on the tech edge - living on a fast lane.
All those packets flying around at that speed someone will put an eye out
Great, another new AP to buy.
Speed is great, I wish they would open up the spectrum a bit more. Channel contention is a killer.
@switchg3ar
Exactly, if the govt. would open up the 2.4 range a lot more , that would help resolve a lot of common issues. You could begin to use 2.4GHz with 40MHz channels for greater 802.11n speeds at further distances with less channel contention. I hope they do at some point, it would make my life so much easier.
Is it just me or wireless companies are looking to find a way to make you buy a new router. First of all wireless sucks I have not seen one access point that I can beat even 10mb wired connections. Yes n is better than previous but it is still slow. Another problem is that everyone buys them so we have to many of these things fighting in the air. I can count about 10 access points that I can pck up from my house, and I live in a residental area. A friend lives by a college and there are to many to count. I think I'm just going to finish putting fiber around my house and forget about trying to speed my wireless.
@JCerna LOL. I just use G, as I get about 5mbit/s at home, which is fast enough, and use fast ethernet when I really need bandwidth.
Funny enough though, my college dorm's network is 10mbit, so my router doesn't limit the speed. Where we have wifi, it is usually 22mbit/s, as its on a 100mb uplink.
5GHZ clears up a lot of the spectrum congestion, but it also has even worse wall and building penetration than 2.4GHZ.