In February, the Wall Street Journal reported on the formation of a new lobbying group called WifiForward that advocated the opening up of unlicensed frequencies to alleviate Wi-Fi congestion and improve performance. The group consisted of industry partners including Google, Best Buy, Microsoft, and many others.
On Monday, the FCC announced that it was freeing up more airwaves for Wi-Fi usage in the U.S. The WiFiForward group wrote in response to the ruling:
Today, the FCC voted unanimously to unleash more unlicensed spectrum will support all the things we already use and further drive investment and experimentation—a 50% increase in spectrum available for Wi-Fi, to be exact. Consumer devices are already equipped to operate in the band, so they can easily be adapted to quickly take advantage of new 5 GHz channels. And a new Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac, has just been approved for the 5 GHz band. 802.11ac’s wide channels will allow for a better consumer experience.
The group indicates that consumer devices will be "easily" adapted to take advantage of the new 5GHz channels, and that 802.11ac will be able to take advantage of the new bandwidth.
802.11ac or "Gigabit" Wi-Fi offers speeds up to three times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks. 802.11ac has been introduced into Apple's Mac line starting in 2013, and is expected to be included in the iPhone 6 later this year.
Top Rated Comments
Not meaningless at all. WiFi is used for local network transfers as well.
also, it seems it will help for congested areas (public wifi)
So you are saying we should stymie progress for the future b/c we might not get the full benefit today? I'm glad people like Edison, Franklin and Bell didn't share your beliefs.
just look at the networks your computer can pick up. i get 40 where i live in NYC
it's so bad i use ethernet on my xbox and apple tv. they sit next to my router and i used to get disconnects even from a few feet away
wifi is always disconnecting. people blame comcast or time warner but it's almost always them using wifi in a dense area
True, but even for the home user less congestion means higher speed. To me it's a car and highway analogy; the article is saying that a highway is going to add more lanes, what the poster is suggesting is that this is useless since the speed limit is only 60 Mph, and wont' get you home faster.
But the truth is, more lanes = less traffic, meaning that you are very likely to breeze through at a consistnet 60 Mph rather than having to slow down (or come to stand still) due to traffic.
More frequency channels and less overlap between channels will help resolve the congestion more. It also would help if it was easier to adjust the output power of a transmitter so it doesn't reach out further than needed. This would allow more networks to coexist peacefully in an area and even improve network security, too.