Late 2015 iMac Support 802.11AC Wave 2?

[legaleye3000]

Does the latest iMac support 802.11ac Wave 2? Thanks.

 

[maflynn]

I don't think so. I believe that technology seems too new for apple to embrace it. There's been no change to apple's airport base station and if there was a move to wave 2, that would be one of the products being updated to the new standard.

 

[mroffbeat]

whats a wave 2... googln right now! thanks

 

[maflynn]

whats a wave 2... googln right now! thanks

I had to google it too, and it being so new only reinforced the idea that we'll not see it on any apple or products for a while.

Its more likely to see 802.11AD then wave 2

 

[bogg]

I had to google it too, and it being so new only reinforced the idea that we'll not see it on any apple or products for a while.

Its more likely to see 802.11AD then wave 2

Not really as they fill different market segments, seeing as 11AD in real life is usable up to max maybe 10-30feet from the base station when you have a clear view of it, remember 11ad works at 60GHz with very low output power, even with the same ouptut power and sensitivity as 11ac it would only be usable within the same room. 11ad is more targeted toward short range communication (say a few meters or so) like docking solutions, computer - tv Wireless display solutions and so forth, not for general Internet/network connectivity.

11ad and 11ac together will most likely be featured in triband devices with automatic switching between the two. Say switching to 11ad while at your desk (if you have your base station close by) and 11ac when a bit further away… this will possibly greatly benefit from mu-mimo and beam forming in wave2.
Wave 2 will most likely show up in any mac released from March and forward seeing almost all new wlan-chips support it.


Wave2 is a huge improvement when it comes to multi user environments and apple would be daft not to implement it seeing as there's been SoCs available to manufacturers for more than 6 months. I've personally had an engineering sample of a wave 2 router at home since late September... And even longer than that if you count the "quantenna" hodgepodge wave2-versions I've had since early 2014. More than that the specs of wave 2 have been available for years, so it's not news for anyone in that part of the industry. Apples engineers would have had plenty of time to plan for wave 2, seeing they probably have known about it since atleast 2013.