Wireless 802.11AC | OxxCode Mobility Solutions
Menu

Wireless 802.11AC

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT 802.11AC 

The appetite for wireless bandwidth is seemingly insatiable. Fifteen years ago, the first standard wireless LANs emerged at 1Mbps and 2Mbps to serve niche applications such as warehouse picking, inventory scanning and, in office buildings where mobility wasn’t a requirement, cordless PC connections aimed at lowering cabling costs. Fast forward through several WLAN generations to today, and the story has completely changed. 

Fifth-generation WLANs are standardized, and they can to run at 1Gbps speeds and beyond to serve any number of mission-critical applications across all industries. Instead of wireless connectivity being reserved for specialized applications or occasional connections in conference rooms, most knowledge workers today use the WLAN as their primary access network, and mobility has become a primary requirement. Employees typically tote a combination of smartphones, tablet computers and laptops supporting both Wi-Fi (802.11) and cellular network connections to access many of their corporate applications. 

As a result, greater wireless throughput and denser networks of wireless access points (APs) are needed to satisfy burgeoning bandwidth demands. 802.11n Wi-Fi version, offering 300Mbps to 450Mbps maximum theoretical speeds per radio, has matured. Enterprises have been steadily installing it since 2009. But even its generous capacity is already being tested in some organizations and soon will be in others, driving the IEEE to develop a 1Gbps WLAN standard, called “802.11ac: Enhancements for Very High Throughput for Operation in Bands Below 6 GHz.” 

The 802.11ac standard specifies WLANs running exclusively in the 5GHz band, so it is backward-compatible with 802.11n devices running at 5GHz. 

WHY DO WE NEED FASTER WI-FI?

More users. Sheer traffic volume is exploding. Wi-Fi has more or less succeeded at displacing Ethernet in the access portion of the corporate network, so there are simply more Wi-Fi users creating traffic. In addition, guest traffic in certain verticals is adding to the loads. For example, retail customers often want to use their Wi-Fi-enabled devices in stores to comparison shop; in turn, retailers take advantage of customers’ wireless connectivity by pushing in-store advertising to them over the airwaves.

More devices per user/BYOD. In addition, users now tend to carry at least two devices; most carry a mobile phone and a laptop, and some carry a tablet computer, as well. This has created a dense population of devices with varying transmit power levels, generating more traffic and creating new Wi-Fi design considerations for the enterprise.

Cellular offload. A number of 3G/4G cellular carriers are growing anxious to offload mobile WAN traffic onto Wi-Fi wherever possible to prevent cellular traffic jams. This works because most popular mobile devices support both cellular and Wi-Fi connections, so cellular subscribers can hop onto Wi-Fi when they are in range.

To know more about 802.11 AC: CLIQUE AQUI