According to In-Stat, almost 1 billion devices enabled with the upcoming 802.11ac WiFi standard will ship by 2015.
Right
now, there are no 802.11ac-enabled devices on the market. Devices with
the 802.11n wireless standard are still hitting the shelves. However, that
will change drastically over the next four years, according to market research
firm In-Stat.
In
a report issued Feb. 8, In-Stat analysts expects the number of devices that
support the 802.11ac WiFi standard will grow to almost 1 billion by 2015, driven
by the ever-pressing demand for more speed. The 802.11ac standard will provide
up to 1 Gigabit network speeds, according to In-Stat.
The
standard also will leverage multiple-user MIMO (multiple input, multiple
output) that can send streams of data to different users on the same channel.
""The
goal of 802.11ac is to provide data speeds much faster than 802.11n, with
speeds of around 1G bps," Frank Dickson, vice president of research at
In-Stat, said in a statement. "The timing for 802.11ac approval is to have
a draft standard created by 2011 and have the first 802.11ac products out by
the end of 2012. The technology behind 802.11ac has not been finalized. However,
it will likely involve bonding four or even eight channels together and some
tweaks to the modulation scheme."
The
802.11n WiFi standard took awhile to ratify-it didn't get fully adopted by the
WiFi Alliance until September 2009-though a lot of devices were launched before
that based on draft standards. And 802.11n came with myriad benefits, from
faster speeds and better methods for encoding packets to support for MIMO and
dual bands.
The
dominance of WiFi will continue as the years roll on, according to In-Stat. In
their report, the analysts said that mobile devices with WiFi will continue to
make up most shipments, and that by 2015, shipments of mobile phones with
embedded WiFi will near 800 million.
Also
by 2015, all mobile hot spot shipments will be 802.11ac-enabled and e-readers
with WiFi attach rates will grow from 3 percent in 2009 to 90 percent in 2015.
In
addition, by 2012, WiFi automotive shipments will reach almost 20 million,
according to In-Stat.
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