Its faster and will be here by year end.The news of WiGig, the latest standard in wireless communication that is yet to be released, comes as worldwide shipments of Wi-Fi consumer equipment passed 43.3 million at the end of the first quarter, a 16.8 percent increase from Q4 2012.
“Wi-Fi 802.11n device shipments still dominate the market, accounting for more than two thirds of total device shipments; however, 802.11ac access point adoption is starting to gain traction,” said ABI analyst Jake Saunders.
Devices with the latest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac, started to enter the market in late 2012.
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According to ABI Research’s Wi-Fi Equipment Market Data report, a total 200,000 consumer 802.11ac Wi-Fi products shipped in the quarter.
The 802.11ac protocol enables speeds up to 1.3Gbps as well as better coverage than 802.11n.
ABI Research expects that 1 million 802.11ac consumer access points will be shipped by the end of 2013.
An even newer Wi-Fi standard – 802.11ad (WiGig) – which uses the 60GHz band and delivers speeds up to 7Gbps was approved by IEEE in early 2013; first products are due in the market at the end of the year.
The new standard will allows devices to communicate audio and visual data wirelessly at multi-gigabit speeds.
Majors including Nokia, Microsoft and Samsung are members of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance board.
