Everyone is familiar with the frustrations of spotty wireless—endless video buffering; important uploads and downloads that take forever to complete,—or worse, get cut off halfway; websites that just won’t load. On Tuesday, Qualcomm Atheros announced at CES that it has enabled a number of 802.11ad multi-band products across mobile, computing and networking segments.
Pushing the limits of high-speed Wi-Fi
Learn more about Qualcomm VIVE 802.11ad site and download the infographic
Why is this important? Because as we live more of our lives online, connectivity is no longer a convenience but a necessity. And as demand for faster, higher-capacity Internet grows, it’s vital that the evolution of Wi-Fi technology can keep up.
That’s where 802.11ad comes in, with its multi-gigabit speeds. 802.11ad operates on a new spectrum in 60 GHz. Think blistering upload and download speeds, lag-free wireless docking, screen mirroring, and cordless VR glasses. This year, you can expect to see several companies rolling out new products utilizing end-to-end 802.11ad solutions.
Take for example the TP-LINK Talon AD7200, which they say is the world’s first wireless 11ad multi-band router. Expected to be available in early 2016, the router will use Qualcomm Atheros’ VIVE 802.11ad and VIVE 11ac MU-MIMO solutions, engineered to tackle activities that used be a chore over Wi-Fi. The Talon AD7200 along with 60 GHz, also utilizes existing 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands, supporting combined speeds of 7 Gbps. With speeds that fast, the device is capable of wirelessly transferring thousands of photos in as little as 5 seconds, or downloading a full-length 4K Ultra HD video in approximately 4 minutes. It can also support multiple devices simultaneously for data-heavy activities like online gaming or streaming. You can see the router in action at the Qualcomm booth as well as TP-LINK’s CES booth (#31163, Tech East, LVCC, South Halls 3-4, upper level).
Adding to this product ecosystem, Acer announced the TravelMate P648 series of commercial notebooks. As one of the mobile industry’s first announced notebooks with 802.11ad connectivity for networking, the TravelMate P648 is engineered to deliver speeds of up to 4.6 Gbps and is ideal for high-volume data transfers in the office. And with less latency, the notebook can project wireless content in just 30 milliseconds. Parallel support for 802.11ac MU-MIMO also means the TravelMate P648 will can triple 11ac throughput improvement in multi-user situations.
No wireless ecosystem would be complete, however, without the smartphone. On that front, Letv launched Letv Max Pro and announced that it will be the first to roll out commercial devices integrating 802.11ad multi-band wireless connectivity. Le Max Pro is the first smartphone to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and also the first smartphone to feature Qualcomm Snapdragon Sense ID fingerprint technology. The phone is being demonstrated at Qualcomm’s as well as Letv’s booth (#21018, LVCC South Hall).
All said, seeing is believing. If you want a first-hand experience of 802.11ad, visit Qualcomm’s CES booth (LVCC North Hall, booth 915; LVCC Central Hall, booths 8643 and 8952) from January 6 to 9 for demonstrations of 802.11ad devices from Asus, NEC, and Elecom.
Find out more about Qualcomm at CES 2016.
