New Wi-Fi version to offer up to 10Gbps speed, but what’s the point?

 The current Wi-Fi standard, the 802.11a protocol has been around since 1999, when it was using 5GHz radio waves to provide download speeds of up to 54Mbps. Since then, the speeds have greatly improved, and Wi-Fi started using 2.4GHz radio waves as well. The latest 802.22ac offers up to 1.3GBps on the 5GHz band, and up to 450Mbps using 2.4GHz.

Although most of us never get any close to these speeds, it seems the Wi-Fi alliance has plans to improve the max speeds even more. The next version, dubbed 802.22ax, will supposedly feature up to 10Gbps download speeds, improving current speeds by up to 6 times as much.

While most consumers will only begin receiving 802.22ac in mid-2015 when the supporting routers will begin hitting the shelves, the 802.22ax isn’t planned for release until the 2019-area. Still a little confused? Let us sort it out.

The current wi-fi standard is known as the 802.22n, which offers speeds of about 700Mbps. While that’s fast enough, most consumers don’t get even close to these speeds: As a matter of fact, most people only get to around 1% of these speeds.

The next standard, which will start getting received around 2015, is known as the 802.22ac, and will offer up to 1.3Gbps, which is enough to download an entire HD movie in under 4 minutes. But, what’s the point of all these fancy speeds, if nobody ever gets close to them?

Well, the 1% maximum speed actually refers to individual devices. That means, that if you are on your own computer per say, and you are currently downloading something, you’ll only reach around 1% of your maximum speeds. However, each increase of the maximum speeds allows to widen the pipeline.

The pipeline is the maximum speed, and it is divided by all the people currently using the same wi-fi company. So, if you are watching a movie, and another person is also watching a movie on his own phone, then still both of you can reach a partial amount of the maximum speeds, but it won’t be over-lapping. That means that your speeds don’t come on account of one another.

So, how does that help? In this days, when Wi-Fi networks are getting a bigger burden than ever with everyone streaming HD movies all the time, the Wi-Fi network needs to get divided by everyone who’s using it, and that can cause a load on the network. That’s when the higher speeds come in handy: They increase the maximum overall speed of the network, and allow for everyone to use it individually, without anyone’s speeds coming on account of another one’s.

Although the 802.22ac isn’t fully commercial yet, in 2019 we’re about to get even speedier with the 802.22ax. That will boost the overall speed of the networks and allow everyone to get much higher speeds, even if it won’t exactly be 10Gbps. Furthermore, with the new technology, your overall percent of the max speed will enlarge, so you might even get closer to 10Gbps than you’re getting now to your speed. According to the Wi-fi alliance, they’re looking to quadruple individual speed, not just the overall network speed.

Don’t get too excited yet, as we’ve got a long time to go until 2019, but the future is certainly looking bright and speedy!