The Future of 802.11ac 125
CowboyRobot writes "The 802.11ac standard is expected to be ratified in 2013 and NetworkComputing has an interview with representatives of Cisco Systems and Aerohive Networks about what that will mean for everyone else. 'Out of the gate, the increases in performance over 11n will not be tremendously impressive. The second wave--which will require a hardware refresh--gets far more interesting... First-generation 802.11ac products will achieve up to 1.3 Gbps through the use of three spatial streams, 80-MHz-wide channels (double the largest 40 MHz channel width with 802.11n), and use of better hardware components that allow higher levels of modulation and encoding (up to 256-QAM). Whether we will actually see 802.11ac products capable of 6.9 Gbps is dependent on hardware enhancements on both the access point and client that are not certain.'"
Re:I'm a wire guy (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember that 5Ghz has a much shorter range than 2.4Ghz so the problems with traffic congestion won't be as bad. If all of your neighbours switched to 5Ghz, you'd still see a noticeable real-world improvement over 2.4Ghz.
Re:Realism... (Score:4, Interesting)
And when you live in a house, like oh say 50%+ of the population, you will now have to purchase 3 wireless routers to ensure coverage, whereas previously only one decent one was enough.