
Fastest Wi-Fi ever is almost ready for real-world use - Libertatea
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/01/fastest-wi-fi-ever-is-almost-ready-for-real-world-use/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29
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hayksaakian
"...with the downside of using frequencies that are easily blocked by walls.
Even thin cubicle walls may block signals, Wilocity acknowledged. "

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dnu
Not good for a house, but very useful for apartments in large buildings. You
can have one wireless AP in each room (connected to eachother with wires), and
almost no interference from the neighbours.

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hayksaakian
Is there no developing, competing standard that improves on current WiFi
without these drawbacks?

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kbuck
802.11n on the 5GHz band (most implementations use 2.4GHz) already does this.
The real problem is the 2.4GHz band, which is simply over-saturated. 2.4GHz
also penetrates walls really well, which is a drawback in apartment situations
because it introduces more interference from neighboring access points (and
many other devices operating on or near the 2.4GHz frequency - wireless
phones, microwaves, etc.).

I've used a 5GHz 802.11n AP in my last two apartments; it's worked great every
time. Most of the time I don't even see any other access points in range. Even
if there are other APs, 5GHz has many more frequency bands available, so
avoiding interference is simple. The only drawback is that so many devices
don't support 5GHz. My smartphone didn't until I upgraded to the SGS III, and
my Nook still doesn't.

Also, 5GHz is faster because the spec allows 40MHz channels.

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hayksaakian
So would pushing for 5ghz N be better than 60ghz?

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joenathan
AC is 5GHz @ 1Gbs and it is already available.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac>

[http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-
AC1750-Gig...](http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-
AC1750-Gigabit-Router/dp/B008ABOJKS/)

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dnu
Yes, but it can also use several channels. This plus the AC standard becoming
more popular will lead to overcrowding in 5 GHz also.

2.4 GHz has 3 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels.

5 GHz has about 23 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels.

Both go through walls, so you will get interference from neighbouring
apartments no matter what technology you implement. The only solutions are to
use a much higher frequency, or shield your apartment walls.

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FollowSteph3
As nice as the speed is, I think the real application is docking stations for
mobile devices - think iPhone, android, etc. I take my mobile device with me,
put it near a wigi router and all of a sudden I have a wireless keyboard mouse
monitors etc all hooked up. No wires required. No setup, nothing!! Very cool
for portability!! My friend comes over and they just bring their devices to
the table and were using another mobile device fully integrated. The mobile
device is a portable brain. Very cool!!

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FollowSteph3
You could even automtically hook up your phone to your tv, etc. no wires
needed. As long as your phone carries everything, it can be hooked up to
anything automatically when you step into a room!

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SoftwareMaven
I'm looking forward to this. I have two great rooms that may have a dozen
active devices at any moment. I'm ok with the single-room applications for
both of these common areas.

I can imagine a lot of similar places in offices. Cubicles could have antanae
attached or be made of a material that is more willing to reflect the beams;
much easier than pulling wires.

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jseliger
>I have two great rooms that may have a dozen active devices at any moment.

If any of them are stationary, or mostly stationary, you might just want to
run an ethernet cable. Even long ones are dirt cheap from Monoprice. For
instance, I wired my iMac, my girlfriend's iMac, and leave a wire at our
kitchen table, where laptops are most likely to be used, for about $12
shipped.

Transferring video files between machines is now fast, and we don't have
interference from neighboring networks (or vice-versa). Ethernet also makes
using distributed processing using Compressor
([http://documentation.apple.com/en/compressor/usermanual/inde...](http://documentation.apple.com/en/compressor/usermanual/index.html#chapter=8%26section=6%26tasks=true))
easy.

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elithrar
> If any of them are stationary, or mostly stationary, you might just want to
> run an ethernet cable. Even long ones are dirt cheap from Monoprice. For
> instance, I wired my iMac, my girlfriend's iMac, and leave a wire at our
> kitchen table, where laptops are most likely to be used, for about $12
> shipped.

I think the issue for most is not the cost of the cables, but the
inconvenience (and safety hazard!) of having cables running around the house.
They also typically tend to look untidy.

For me it'a a decision between a wireless router (which I would need anyway)
for $180-odd or an additional $200-$300 to get CAT6 wired up to two (2) rooms
in the house w/ 2 sockets per faceplate (and a cheap switch to aggregate it
all).

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jseliger
>w/ 2 sockets per faceplate (and a cheap switch to aggregate it all).

Oh—we just run it along baseboards and tape the cords in place.

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notatoad
This isn't 'wifi'. 60GHz is not practical for general purpose wireless data
connections. It's a 7Gbit wireless link, which will be great for beaming
something to your TV, or for a wireless bridge link between two buildings, or
any of myriad other specific use cases. We don't need that much bandwidth on
our wifi, and we certainly don't need the tradeoffs.

