Apple Reportedly Strikes Deal with Broadcom to Add 802.11ac Gigabit Wi-Fi to 2013 Macs

[bearda]

Originally Posted by newdeal

I hope its actually good and doesn't drop to N speeds as soon as you are behind a wall or further than 10 feet from the router or something

No, of course not! It'll drop to g speeds...

[carlgo]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

Because carrying increased bandwidth over long distances becomes exponentially expensive.

Well, that is so sad for the carriers. Perhaps we can save them for only a dollar a day, like poor kids in cardboard houses. Would they send us little notes thanking us, along with photos of the CEOs in their $600 khakis.

[KnightWRX]

Originally Posted by carlgo

So sad for the carriers. Imagine having to spend money to provide service...oh, sorry, they don't as they are virtual monopolies. Whew, hopefully the CEOs aren't eating out of dumpsters behind the local McDonalds.

I did work for an ISP in the 90s (saw the first deployments of DOCSIS 1.1 using Cisco/Motorola/3Com gear). I can assure you no one is sitting on money instead of upgrading. The thing is, your wired Gigabit Ethernet at home over a max of 100 meters is nothing compared to the distance a telecommunications backbone has to cover and the technologies involved just cannot be the same.

Not to mention your 100$ router is fine routing packets over its 3-4 routes for your 2-3 nodes, but your ISP's edge and backbone routers have to do the same for thousands of nodes with routing tables that are just immense and constantly in flux through dynamic routing protocols (be it OSPF on the internal side or MPLS switching or BGP for inter-AS routing externally).

Heck, the 1 company I work for now, a utilities, has a bigger telecom backbone that most ISPs and we cover the whole province. Some remote sites are stuck with low bandwidth uplinks because even getting fiber in those remote areas would require work crews to be setting up sensitive equipment in the Tundra, 300 km away from the closest village, much less small town.

Of course, it's easy to say that carriers are being lazy when you don't have the first clue about what goes on in a telecom backbone.

[unplugme71]

Originally Posted by bearda

Backups with a Time Capsule are about the same speed with it's internal non-USB drive. The problem isn't the USB interface. The USB 2.0 bus should be able to just about saturate an 802.11n link, but don't come close on an Airport Extreme/Time Capsule. I don't know if the protocol stack needs work, or if the processor in the router just can't keep up but switching to USB 3.0 alone isn't going to help.

Well if they just slap USB 3.0 in it then yes you are correct. But I would think Apple would provide better support with the USB 3.0 to provide that faster speed where adding it WILL make it faster.

And I don't always backup over WiFi, sometimes over GbE. So USB 2.0 does get saturated. Probably should invest in a linux box with internal drives for faster backup.

[KramRevilo]

After working in WiFi for years and NEVER hearing about 2G, 3G, 4G or ANY G I can just say:

That's. Just. Stupid.

and

Just because the marketing department at Broadcom calls it 5G, doesn't make it so.

Originally Posted by Quu

Actually this is false and it really does mean 5th Generation Wireless.

From Broadcoms own website. Image

But I did find your post quite fun to read

[JAQ]

Gods above and below, please drop this idiotic "5G" moniker before it catches on! It will only confuse consumers more, who will (understandably) think that it's somehow related to "3G" and "4G" cell technology. I already have a hard enough time explaining to non-tech people that wifi and cell networking aren't the same thing, and aren't the same speed... using the same names for them will just make it worse.

"5G" doesn't even telling the consumer anything about the actual speed or characteristics of the technology, like we used to do with landline modems ("2400bps" or "56kbps") and wired ethernet (100baseT). Calling 802.11n "Wifi-N" may not have said anything useful about the specs either, but at least it's distinctive, and "Wifi-AC" would be just as effective.

----------

Originally Posted by Quu

The 5G here stands for 5th generation.

What exactly is your job in Broadcom's Marketing Department? Assistant Bootlicker?

[RamGuy]

Hmm, this brings up the question whether to sell or not to sell my MacBook Pro 15" Retina (Basis model) a few weeks before the new ones hit the market.

The unbelievable resell prices of previous generation Mac's combined with student discounts makes it possible to replace models every year for a very small fee and after some calculations I've figured I actually spend less money paying the difference of selling my one year old model and get the brand new one with student discount every year compared to keep one model for four to five years and flash out almost full price (five year old models don't sell for that much).


If not, I got the right screwdriver and by looking at iFixit's pictures of their MacBook Pro 15" Retina tear-down replacing the WiFi NIC with a Broadcom 802.11AC one should be pretty straight forward as it would only require to unscrew the bottom and the WiFi card is immediately exposed and these AC cards shouldn't be any larger (considering the MacBook Pro 15" Retina actually feature a full-sized NIC, not half-size as 99% of today's laptops), still use mini-PCIe and feature the same 3x3 MIMO antenna design with the very same connectors and antennas for connectivity.

[xxgilxx]

That's a lot of Internet porn...

[Rocketman]

Even after 802.11ac is released in enough real products to matter, the main problem in achieving those speeds are distance. There will have to be a fad of sorts for sales of repeaters for most people in real situations to optimize it.

Rocketman

[apple-win]

Originally Posted by petsounds

The biggest problem with 802.11n is the short functional range and susceptibility to interference indoors, as compared to 802.11g. I hope 802.11ac operates at longer ranges and is more robust indoors.

It won't. Law of physics still applies. It is 5GHz. If you don't get full speed 802.11n, you won't get full speed 802.11ac.

[funman95]

Lucky Google Fiber Users

[Vizin]

.

[Rodimus Prime]

while this is nice, it is not like many of us will update to use it. I sure as hell am not going pay to replace my router just to use 802.11ac. Heck the only reason I have a wireless N router is because I needed a router and I am in an apartment that is just over loaded with 2.4ghz so I went to the 5ghz n range.

b to g was a good bump and worth the cost. For 90% of the stuff we use wireless for (internet) g is still pretty massive over kill. Until we have no problem getting and holding 30+ Mbps G is over kill. Yeah for file transfers N is nice but for the most part we are not doing that and G is more than what we need for streaming from our computer to our TV.

[petsounds]

Originally Posted by apple-win

It won't. Law of physics still applies. It is 5GHz. If you don't get full speed 802.11n, you won't get full speed 802.11ac.

Didn't know it was 5GHz, so thanks for the info. However, speed loss was never the problem with 802.11n -- it is very intolerant of weak signal and its range dropoff is much smaller than 802.11g is.

[mscice]

Originally Posted by dbernie41

Excellent news. I will be replacing my 2008 MBP soon and wanted to be sure the machine I buy has AC as I keep mine for a relatively long time.

same reason and in same boat as you

[SPUY767]

Originally Posted by TimUSCA

Actually, no. Current 802.11n speeds are vastly faster than your internet. These faster wifi speeds will only help internal data transfers such as Time Machine backups and AirPlay connectivity.

Not only that, but n speeds are plenty fast to use Beamer to stream dead rips of Blu-Ray movies to my AppleTV. Is there anything else that we're actually going to being using this crap for? Are we transferring terabytes of files over our home wireless networks using AirDrop?

[ohbrilliance]

How many megapixels will it have?

[apple-win]

Originally Posted by ohbrilliance

How many megapixels will it have?

Apple Airport Extreme base station is fast enough for Windows Media Center to stream recorded HDTV program from PC to PC (1920 x 1080 resolution). 802.11ac for Mac is overkill.

[Michael CM1]

Originally Posted by discuit

Didn't 802.11a come out after 802.11b? Or at least devices that could use it did.

Also, I don't understand why the latest one is called "ac", couldn't they just use a single unused letter and avoid confusion with 802.11a?

There isn't an unused single letter. 802.11 standards cover more than just the big boy wifi. Once the letters were used up to z, the IEEE started double letters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

I do hope some moniker is chosen other than 5G. When companies are just going to treat things like that as marketing terms (see both fake 4G and even 4G LTE), then at least give as a name that doesn't confuse with something real.

[WilliamLondon]

Originally Posted by Rodimus Prime

For 90% of the stuff we use wireless for (internet) g is still pretty massive over kill. Until we have no problem getting and holding 30+ Mbps G is over kill. Yeah for file transfers N is nice but for the most part we are not doing that and G is more than what we need for streaming from our computer to our TV.

Yes, true, but paradigm shifts come from these types of step changes, especially where seemingly there doesn't appear a need for it with today's common computing usage. For example, you say file transfers with N are great (and that's one of the only everyday uses of the bandwidth we have available), so what if we utilised this additional bandwidth more for file transferring by changing the whole computing and storage paradigm? Imagine what would happen if wherever we happened to be we had access to files or applications or data or..., and transfer of this to our local devices was instantaneous - what would our local storage requirements be? How might that impact computing? Do apps need to be stored on a local device? Does all processing need to happen locally? Does the OS need to reside on the device? I'm not the greatest at the visionary stuff, but perhaps you see what I mean. It's when you have this sort of change that a small or large ripple effect can occur (perhaps even paradigm shift). Personally, I think the next major paradigm shift in consumer computing will be around connectivity (is already happening?), and that will hugely impact our computing and devices in the future. As for today, I've got an Airport Extreme that I've been itching to upgrade, and now I think I'll put off upgrading it until they implement 802.11ac - I might as well be ready for the future when it arrives.

[Tankmaze]

and... we will be needing new airport extreme to use the 802.11ac or new routers

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by apple-win

Apple Airport Extreme base station is fast enough for Windows Media Center to stream recorded HDTV program from PC to PC (1920 x 1080 resolution). 802.11ac for Mac is overkill.

What if there's other traffic on the radio.

WiFi is a shared bus subject to interference - don't think that a simple check with random input (what bandwidth is the "recorded HDTV program") proves anything.

But I don't worry - I wired my house with Cat6 copper. Everybody gets full-duplex 1 Gbps all of the time....

[apple-win]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

What if there's other traffic on the radio.

WiFi is a shared bus subject to interference - don't think that a simple check with random input (what bandwidth is the "recorded HDTV program") proves anything.

But I don't worry - I wired my house with Cat6 copper. Everybody gets full-duplex 1 Gbps all of the time....

I wish I could use Cat6.

The range of 5 GHz 802.11n is so short that it barely reach my bedroom. I don't think my neighbour's 5 GHz can interfere my signal because 5 GHz is only good for line-of-sight. I think Mac with 802.11ac is a tactic by Apple so as to make followers buy a new Mac every year.

The only application for this kind of high-speed Wi-Fi is running Windows Media Center Extender, streaming MS-DVR file. But OS X does not support MS-DVR file, what's the point to offer 802.11ac speed to OS X users
(Ripping Blu-ray and jailbreak Apple TV is illegal, this application doesn't count)

[bigpics]

Originally Posted by carlgo

So, the carriers are remain the real bottleneck in all of this. We get a rousing 1.3mbs on the local ISP.

I'm paying for 20mbs and often getting less than half of what you are! And there's hardly anyone else on my node.....

[Quu]

Originally Posted by KramRevilo

After working in WiFi for years and NEVER hearing about 2G, 3G, 4G or ANY G I can just say:

That's. Just. Stupid.

and

Just because the marketing department at Broadcom calls it 5G, doesn't make it so.

Just because you thought it meant 5GHz doesn't make it so either. I corrected your wrong statement and you got angry about it. It isn't my fault you're out of touch with it. You were commenting on exactly what the 5G meant in this logo, you said it meant 5GHz and chuckled at us, but you were wrong. Now you're getting angry because you were called out on not knowing what the logo actually meant, the logo broadcom made.

Originally Posted by JAQ

What exactly is your job in Broadcom's Marketing Department? Assistant Bootlicker?

Totally unnecessary flaming.

For years we have gone about on here and called iPods & iPads by their generation numbers. This is no different, it is the 5th iteration of available WiFi.

Furthermore the comments on this thread about the 5G moniker were about the one that Broadcom has created. I did not come along and go "hey guys did you know this new thing is called 5G WiFi?" The discussion was already going on and I simply corrected one person who incorrectly believed the logo stood for 5GHz and not 5th Generation.

Originally Posted by Michael CM1

There isn't an unused single letter. 802.11 standards cover more than just the big boy wifi. Once the letters were used up to z, the IEEE started double letters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11

I do hope some moniker is chosen other than 5G. When companies are just going to treat things like that as marketing terms (see both fake 4G and even 4G LTE), then at least give as a name that doesn't confuse with something real.

The 5th Generation WiFi logo is merely featured in places where you would have previously seen the WiFi logo like this:




This is a picture I took of my own 802.11ac router from Asus and as you can see it features the 5G logo in the bottom left corner but more prominently features the 802.11ac text in the centre of the box. I do not believe the 802.11ac will go away and get replaced only by the word 5G just like 802.11n wasn't merely replaced by the WiFi Certified logo from the above image.