A pair of leading wireless groups have agreed to cooperate on building a new multi-gigabit wireless networking standard in the 60 GHz frequency band.
The Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Gigabit Alliance hope their agreement will lead to shared technology specifications and the development of products supporting 60 GHz technology.
“60 GHz device connectivity will be an exciting enhancement to the capabilities of today’s Wi-Fi technologies. It will expand the utility of Wi-Fi, used by hundreds of millions of people every day,” said Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Edgar Figueroa, in a statement. “From its inception, the WiGig specification was designed to work on a wide variety of devices, making it a compelling input as we begin to define our certification program for 60 GHz wireless.”
The groups see the 60 GHz band as complimenting, rather than replacing, existing Wi-Fi technologies. It would be targeted at applications that require gigabit speeds for a wide range of high-performance devices. The new devices could also support traditional Wi-Fi capabilities in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, according to the groups.
“Now that our specification is complete and published, it’s time to set our sights on driving a great user experience through interoperability and certification,” said Dr. Ali Sadri, president and chairman of the WiGig Alliance, in a statement. “We are happy to work with the Wi-Fi Alliance to extend multi-gigabit capabilities to the Wi-Fi technology portfolio.”
A “WiGig” specification defines protocols to deliver data transfer rates measured in gigabits rather than megabits and supports a new range of applications and usages, according to the Wireless Gigabit Alliance. The specification also defines procedures to enable WiGig-compliant devices to hand over sessions to operate in the 2.4 or 5 GHz band. It is expected that a new class of tri-band Wi-Fi Certified devices will offer multi-gigabit wireless speeds while helping to ensure backward compatibility.
The WiGig Alliance was formed to develop the next generation of multi-gigabit wireless products by encouraging the adoption and widespread use of 60 GHz wireless technology worldwide. It is supported by board members from companies including Cisco Systems, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Samsung and Toshiba.
