I have previously written about securing
mobile phones and tablets in the workplace with IBM Endpoint Manager for Mobile
Devices. With a great number of devices such as phones, tablets and laptops
appearing in the office, more demands are being put on our wireless networks.
It’s not just the number of devices though; we are expecting more from our
‘gadgets’, so bandwidth demands are higher now too, and these demands will only
increase.
Wi-Fi standards have been improving over
the years, with 802.11n being the standard on most devices today. This has been
fine for most of our needs, so much so that very few people in Celerity connect
to our network with an Ethernet cable. On the rare occasion I would use
Ethernet is when I want to upload an ISO into a VMware datastore. Even those
days might be numbered soon, as Wi-Fi is trying to catch up to the speeds of
Ethernet with what they’re calling Gigabit Wi-Fi…
Well… they’re calling it Gigabit
Wi-Fi, but faster than gigabit speeds are only really going to be achieved in
optimum conditions. 802.11ac, as it’s snappily called, is the fifth generation
Wi-Fi standard and is being released in 2 waves.
Wave 1
Wave 1 was finalised in
December last year and products are already on the market. The theoretical
speed of 802.11ac is 1300 Mbps, using triple stream SU-MIMO (Single-User
multiple-input and multiple-output) antennas with wider channels (now 80 MHz).
This more than triples the theoretical speed over 802.11n. The number of
spatial streams have doubled from four to eight, potentially doubling the
number of clients too. Beamforming, which overcame RF interference by
optimising transmissions, which was introduced in 802.11n is now standard, and
a full move to the 5 GHz band means that 802.11ac suffers from less
interference and crowding than the 2.4 GHz band of 802.11n and below. This
means that you’ll need a dual-band access point if you want full backwards
compatibility with older 2.4 GHz band devices, otherwise you’ll only be able to
go back as far as the 5 GHz variant of 802.11n, luckily most 802.11ac access
point are dual-band. All taken together, Wave 1 of 802.11ac offers an efficient
evolution of Wi-Fi.
Wave 2
Wave 2 is expected next year and
offers doubling, and possibly even quadrupling, the number of compatible
clients an access point can support at once using MU-MIMO (Multi-User MIMO)
antennas. Beamforming in Wave 2 is planned to allow for communication of
multiple single stream devices on the same channel. A further increase to 160
MHz channels will allow for a higher throughput in less congested areas too.
All taken together, the maximum data rate of Wave 2 is hoped to be 6.9 Gbps.
However, Wave 2 isn’t finalised yet, so these figures could change.
So when
is the right time to upgrade?
Manufacturers are planning
ahead and have future-proofed some of their access points by making them
modular. These field replicable Wave 1 modules will be able to be swapped out
for Wave 2 modules making future upgrades easier.
cA Ciso Aironet 3700i and 3700e access point with Wave 1
module
Some aggressive pricing means that
currently some 802.11ac access points aren’t too much more expensive than
802.11n access points. Now would be a good time make the move if your wireless
network is struggling under the strain.
Want
to know more? Contact Celerity
today.
John Carson, Technical
Limited
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