The WiFi Alliance has expanded their "WiFi CERTIFIED ac" certification program to lead the way for faster internet speeds and handling of UHD and 4K video.
The announcement came from the certification body last week. Just what is “WiFi certified ac”? Based on IEEE 802.11ac, “Wave 2” WiFi is capable of delivering up to multi-gigabit per second data rates, therefore makes delivering UHD and 4K video content quicker, as well as multimedia streaming and the obvious power management and latency benefits.
Any new AC product (so far including the likes of Cisco and Samsung) has now been tested to provide 160MHz channels rather than 80MHz, and four spatial streams (quad-stream or 4x4), up from three-stream (3x3) – both these factors will speed up wireless connections. It is also expected that a stream of new products and services in business and public places.
Arguably, WiFi CERTIFIED ac’s most notable feature, multi-user Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) allows devices of different WiFi grades to work simultaneously on the same network without loss in speed or performance.
The extended channel of the 5GHz frequency band is also now certified to reduce the likelihood of signal collision and interference.
The WiFi Alliance forecasts that by 2020, 95 percent of devices (currently at 68%) will support dual-band and in the next five years, most Wi-Fi access points will support Wave 2 Wi-Fi.