Apple Expected to Adopt 802.11ac 5G Gigabit Wi-Fi This Year

If I were a betting man, I would say that Apple will look at this spec and determine if it's realistic that it gets ratified this year. If so, they'll implement early and provide an firmware upgrade once it's ratified.

Also I'd guess that a new AppleTV product is possibly waiting for this and for Apple to implement it into their base station. Once done we'll likely see 1080P content as well.

I'd speculate that since learning about 802.11ac now that a new AppleTV won't be around until late this year just in time for xmas.

Of course I'd be happier to see 5Ghz 802.11n on an iphone.

scoobydoo99 said:

Not at all. It will be YEARS before the standard is officially set.

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The current target is december 2012. You'd have been right about "YEARS" about 13 months ago.

Great, I want more range.

I could use a new router though, have to find a way to make a 3rd party router work with my ISP's fibre modem.

Does this variant actually do much with RANGE? Or is it all about speed only?

Which variant offered something like 63 miles of (theoretical) range?

This is def a big platform boost for future apple technology. It could easily get side stepped by saying "oh big deal faster file transfer".

Since my TC is next to my 1.83GHz iMac in order to wire it in, this is totally unneeded... fail!

/sarcasm: making fun of those who think that since they don't encounter an issue, then there is no need to fix it.

As much as I am happy with that progress but then again I see problems rising between devices compatibility and different wifi structures. Now I got Time capsule which I cant set on N-profile only because some of Apple hardware which supposed to work with it simply don't "sometimes".
More chaos on the way!!!

Rodimus Prime said:

Well considering that 5-10 mb/s is going to be around 0.5-1 gigabit/ s speeds the answer is no because you are bumping against the max speed of the network that having on 20% overhead is being nice as local laws and wifi tend to not care about having extra overhead as they have space to burn.

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What are you talking about? 500megabit connection would go 50mb/s and a 1 gig connection would go 100mb/s

Heh, great. I don't really follow much with wifi standards, so I had no idea this was in the pipeline so soon. I just updated my whole wireless network hardware a few months ago. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be a while before I have any wireless devices can use 802.11ac, so it would only give me a boost transferring files between a handful of devices that are plugged into my routers. For media streaming, 802.11n is plenty, and I don't do a lot of file transfers anyway.

adder7712 said:

Great, I want more range.

I could use a new router though, have to find a way to make a 3rd party router work with my ISP's fibre modem.

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HobeSoundDarryl said:

Does this variant actually do much with RANGE? Or is it all about speed only?

Which variant offered something like 63 miles of (theoretical) range?

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As I understand it, no, 802.11ac will have better range than 802.11a and 802.11n running 5Ghz, but worse range than 802.11g/n 2.4GHz... If it's range you're looking for, 802.11ac is not likely going to make you happy.

It seems that 802.11ac omits 2.4GHz entirely, like 802.11a, so any gear that doesn't support 802.11 a or n (5GHz) will be unable to use it..

I suppose Apple could make an AirPort Extreme with multiple radios, one 802.11n, one 802.11ac.. for backwards compatibility.. Then have 802.11ac in things like the AppleTV (where range won't matter as much) and 802.11n in computers/iPhones (where you're often in situations where range is important)...

Shrug.

Will having 802.11n devices on an 802.11ac network slow down the whole network like when you have g devices on an n network?

jwdsail, thanks for the info. I was afraid of that.

I recently saw something about a standard with a theoretical range of something like 62 miles. The discussion was how enough of these in place with "guest" (free) access might prove to a big threat to the cell phone industry. 62 miles range (maybe proving to be 15-20 miles in the "real world") + voip software seems like it could be a conceptual alternative to 4G/3G/2G.

If such a standard exists or nears existence, I wonder if the 4G/3G powers will crush it to protect the cellular cash cow?

Considering Apple tend to be a bit conservative at bringing out new things, this is actually impressive how fast they are implementing this.

hamlin said:

What are you talking about? 500megabit connection would go 50mb/s and a 1 gig connection would go 100mb/s

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that would be sleep deprivations for you.

HobeSoundDarryl said:

I recently saw something about a standard with a theoretical range of something like 62 miles. The discussion was how enough of these in place with "guest" (free) access might prove to a big threat to the cell phone industry. 62 miles range (maybe proving to be 15-20 miles in the "real world") + voip software seems like it could be a conceptual alternative to 4G/3G/2G.

If such a standard exists or nears existence, I wonder if the 4G/3G powers will crush it to protect the cellular cash cow?

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The only thing I can think of with that range is IEEE 802.22, and that was standardized in July 2011. IEEE 802.11af will have a theoretical range of something like 1.2 miles, and will be standardized (expected) by March 2012. Why no one has invested? Beats me. People typically don't like changing the way things are done.

Yes, I think that's (IEEE 802.22) the one. I didn't immediately find another reference to the "approx. 62 mile range" though wikipedia offers: " ...to bring broadband access to hard-to-reach, low population density areas, typical of rural environments, and is therefore timely and has the potential for a wide applicability worldwide. It is the first worldwide effort to define a standardized air interface based on CR techniques for the opportunistic use of TV bands on a non-interfering basis." which somewhat implies that weak memory.

Imagine that reach of wifi via "guest" (free) access in new routers all over the U.S. Mix in some Voip software and 3G/4G could be challenged by those willing to accept whatever compromises would come with it (if any). I wonder if it could function in motion (jumping from wifi source to source as someone moves about) just like 3G. But even if it couldn't, for those that want to make/take a (Voip) call without being in motion (beyond- say- walking), maybe there would be something there?

Just think what could happen if adoption came with a mandated requirement for an Apple Airport Express-like "guest" option (some wifi made available for free to anyone). Especially in cities, it seems like that could make the Internet broadly available to nearly everyone.

(which is why iEEE 802.22 will probably be crushed by those who like things (particularly 3G/4G subscription revenues) as they are).

HobeSoundDarryl said:

Imagine

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I do so all the time. I dream of the day when we will only have to pay one, very modest, "telecommunication" bill, i.e. one bill for all our television, phone, internet, etc. I don't know if I'll be alive when that day rolls around though. The current state of affairs regarding copyrights and intellectual property worries me greatly; they are aimed more toward corporate welfare than the creativity and proliferation of technology, which is why too much technology is being held back and only gradually being offered, at exorbitant prices. Why release new tech when they can gradually get to you transition into it, increasing the price each time along the way to ensure their profits remain steady. If you think technology will make communicating easier and cheaper into the future, I fear you may be living in a fairy tale as I am.

I know this is stupid question because no one really knows. But does anyone think they will implement this in a update very soon, whether devices can even take advantage of it yet?

I just bought an airport extreme (newest gen) like two weeks, so this makes me curious.

MacOG728893 said:

I know this is stupid question because no one really knows. But does anyone think they will implement this in a update very soon, whether devices can even take advantage of it yet?

I just bought an airport extreme (newest gen) like two weeks, so this makes me curious.

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I doubt any devices can, and for the most part, other than when you transfer large files, the speed boost would be useless. The bottleneck for the overwhelming majority of uses will always remain with the speed of your internet connection; in fact this last point will probably become even more pronounced with time given the fact that everything is transitioning to the cloud. Internet connections aren't even close to maxing out on the 802.11n standard, so there really isn't much point in paying to upgrade everything (when that becomes possible).

JohnDoe98 said:

I doubt any devices can, and for the most part, other than when you transfer large files, the speed boost would be useless. The bottleneck for the overwhelming majority of uses will always remain with the speed of your internet connection; in fact this last point will probably become even more pronounced with time given the fact that everything is transitioning to the cloud. Internet connections aren't even close to maxing out on the 802.11n standard, so there really isn't much point in paying to upgrade everything (when that becomes possible).

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Thanks for the information! I'll be getting a few years out of my new Airport Extreme that's for sure!

kiljoy616 said:

Considering Apple tend to be a bit conservative at bringing out new things, this is actually impressive how fast they are implementing this.

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They way they adopted thunderbolt, this could be a possibility.

KnightWRX said:

The current target is december 2012. You'd have been right about "YEARS" about 13 months ago.

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Of course. The target date tends to change. We can check back again in December, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

sammich said:

You clearly haven't used 802.11b have you?

[...]

802.11b...my good lord, that was freaking slow.

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Always depends on what you did with it and the specific hardware you got. We had 1.5Mbps internet and 802.11b maxed it out (ie, downloading on a wireless computer or hardwired got the exact same bitrate), and yes that was a "real" 1.5Mbps (fluctuating up to 1.7 or so but rarely below 1.5).

That having been said, 1.5Mbps is really slow compared to "average" internet speeds coming into well-populated areas. Even my inlaws in Idaho have 3Mbps internet. Can't say if 'b' does well against that with its theoretical 11Mbps, but it sure did just fine back in the day.

Coming back to the present, even at 10% efficiency - which would be a sign of massive interference and/or crap hardware - 'n' should outperform the average home broadband speeds. Until you start hitting 15-25Mbps speeds from your provider, you're not going to saturate an 'n' network. Even if you have three people using the Internet at the same time: they share the ISP connection's bandwidth just like they do the local network.

That said, extra local-area bandwidth is nice, because for Apple to sell hardware people need to do things at home that go beyond downloading stuff from the Internet. Layer on top of that sending video from your server to your TV while a couple of laptops are doing Time Machine backups while your iPhone is synching the latest podcasts and your iPad is acting as remote control. That's where the extra bandwidth in the home is going to have an effect: letting people do "local" stuff while still getting ISP content at full-bore. That and being ready for the eventual increases in home internet service bandwidth.

jettredmont said:

Always depends on what you did with it and the specific hardware you got....

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All true, but after putting Cat6 and structured cabling RJ45 jacks throughout my home I'm a firm believer in


It's nice to transfer the .ISO images of BDs to the HTPC at 110 MB/sec over CIFS shares, and to have it simply not matter whether a 40 GB file is local or on the home server. (The HTPC has a mirror of the .ISO images on the home server, normally all videos are played from the server - the mirror is just a backup for when the fraking disks on the server fail. The .ISO images are too big to include in the 4 times per day backups of the server.)

No more WiFi for me, except out on the patio....

(Actually, I was a firm believer in Cu before, which is why I put in the Cat6! )

OffTopic: Is 10 gigabit ethernet as fast as Thunderbolt? If so, why is it not more common for file transfers?