802.11ac Wi-Fi Wave 2 update will double the already fast Wi-Fi speeds

The upcoming 'Wave 2' update to 802.11ac Wi-Fi will double the throughput speed.

Published
Updated
59 seconds read time

There's a huge change coming to Wi-Fi technology, with the industry body behind Wi-Fi meeting, and signing off on a new level of performance that's going to blow the walls off of your house. The only issue is it won't roll out instantly, as we'll need new smartphones, tablets, routers, and Wi-Fi adapters to be upgraded to this super-quick new standard.

802.11ac Wi-Fi Wave 2 update will double the already fast Wi-Fi speeds | TweakTown.com

The new standard is 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which has individual 5GHz channel speeds of up to 867MHz. The update known as 'Wave 2' is coming, pushing the Wave 1 speeds from 802.11 to new heights, including technologies like MU-MIMO (multi-user, multiple input multiple output) and wider channel bandwidth that will allow for faster than ever Wi-Fi transfers.

The Wave 2 update to 802.11ac Wi-Fi has maximum channel widths of up to 160MHz, which provides twice the potential throughput of the current 802.11ac devices on the market. Previous chips used up to three input/output streams, but the new standards can do four input/output streams.

When will we see it? Well, there's already the ImgTec Creator Ci40 that is a high-end device, but there are other devices on the way from chipset makers like Qualcomm, Marvell, MediaTek and Broadcom. These new devices should arrive in the coming weeks and months with the insanely fast Wi-Fi speeds.

Personally, I can't wait. I was about to upgrade my home network to 10GbE and use a top of the line new Wi-Fi router... but I think I'll wait for this.

NEWS SOURCE:gizmodo.com.au

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

Newsletter Subscription

Related Tags