802.11ac

Just when folks are moving to 802.11n, we now have 802.11ac coming around the corner. (Well a few years out at least) Interesting that it is in the 5GHz range, just as 802.11a. (Both Welch Allyn and Masimo use 802.11a). The specification will enable multi-station WLAN throughput of at least a Gigabit per second and a maximum single link throughput of at least 500 megabits per second (500 Mbits.second). This definitely puts “wireless” in the afterburner mode! Hardwired Ethernet…legacy. How this is done is by enhancing the air interface concepts of 802.11n. For instance providing wider channel bandwidth of 80MHz and 160MHz versus 40MHz of 802.11n, supporting more MIMO spatial streams up to 8 versus 4 in 802.11n, multi-user MIMO, and high density modulation (up to 256 QAM) The initial technical draft 0.1 was confirmed by IEEE 802.11 TGac on January 20, 2011, with standard finalization anticipated in 2012. Just like 802.11n, this will be a boon to say laptops, I-Pads, to say download PAC images, video, etc. Never see any current potential in medical devices. There will continue to be a mixture of medical devices using 802.11b/g/a for the portended future. However, the issue will be the backhaul. I expect that this will change the landscape of the L2/L3 model and digital fiber to the AP, or that digital fiber will be the new highway replacing traditional copper. Maybe intelligence built into optical head ends? At the end of the day you need the pipe ( the utility) and this is perhaps a direct head on to LTE. Just my thoughts.