Wi-Fi Gigabit Speeds Just One to Two Years Away

Qualcomm Atheros president Craig Barratt said that it will be one or two years before consumers see routers supporting 802.11ac.

ZoomCraig Barratt, president of Qualcomm Atheros, recently statedthat Wi-Fi gigabit speeds within the home (via 802.11ac) is just one or two years away from becoming reality. He made this revelation during an interview at GigaOM's Mobilize conference on Tuesday as he explained how Wi-Fi technology will soon get better and faster.

As reported earlier, 802.11ac is the next step past 802.11n in the Wi-Fi ladder. It will be fully backward compatible with all previous generations of Wi-Fi, and in the 2.4 GHz spectrum, it will be identical to 802.11n. The major innovation with 802.11ac will be that in the 5 GHz band, the spec will offer "substantially" higher throughput. That said, users will see gigabit speeds using the 5 GHz band.

But as GigaOM points out, most consumers don't have a gigabit connection to the Internet. "We are driving more content around the home," Barratt said. "And actually in many countries, they already enjoy substantially larger broadband connections into the home, so optical networks are being deployed on every increasing scales. And in the next several years, we do expect much higher bandwidth connections into the home as well."

Why we need higher bandwidth connections and faster wireless speeds should be fairly obvious: we're data hogs. We like our games, our movies and our television shows streamed right to our desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, consoles and HDTVs. The higher the resolution, the more bandwidth we'll need to satisfy our hunger for multimedia. But much in the way software and hardware drive each other forward, the same applies to multimedia and bandwidth.

Barratt pointed out that consumers also need a strong Wi-Fi network to offload much of that data consumption from cellular networks that typically charge high prices for small allowances of data. But as he states, gigabit speeds on Wi-fi networks -- whether they're at home or at the local Starbucks -- will be one or two years away.

"A lot of work is happening in the standards group right now," he said.

Yet even if 802.11ac will be finalized within a year or two, will most households be ready? Will consumers need that kind of throughput if broadband connections are still piping internet in at up to 15 Mbps? As it stands now, even Wireless N is faster than what most broadband providers are bringing into the home.