Maybe 802.11ad Will Dominate After All
Posted on November 22, 2011
Hey, I know 802.11ac is being positioned as the successor to and logical upgrade path for 802.11n. But let’s stop and think about that for a moment – 60 GHz. may make a lot more sense.
My last posting on the subject of 60 GHz. WLANs and 802.11ad was a bit cautionary in nature. Following a briefing with the folks at the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig), I was surprised that I heard a lot about wireless docking, video streaming, and applications essentially WPAN in nature, but relatively little about the 802.11ad WLAN opportunity. I think all constituencies concerned with 60 GHz. need to make the case for WLANs at these rarefied frequencies, presumably via whatever 802.11ad turns out to be, as a primary focus. Streaming and docking are certainly important, and, yes, there are markets for these applications. But good old everyday wireless LANs, always in need by definition of more capacity, must by sheer volume drive the adoption of any short-range wireless technology, or that technology is going to become the next Bluetooth - a niche with little real application, declining innovation, and perhaps an early death. Sure, Bluetooth has a huge installed base (albeit with the only real application today being in-car telephony links), but remember the anointed successor the Bluetooth PHY,ultra-wideband (UWB)? I am likely wrong in my prediction from 2009 that there is still more to come here. There likely isn't.
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