What is 802.11ac and Why Do We Need to Protect Wi-Fi for It?
It’s expected that by 2020, the world will have 50 billion Wi-Fi enabled devices. Everything from baby monitors and tablets to things we can’t even imagine today will be voraciously feeding off of the wireless broadband in our homes, cafes, and even in our public parks. It’s practically ubiquitous now, but the seemingly magical technology that enables Wi-Fi is barely fifteen years old. When it was first deployed, wireless Local Area Network (LAN) systems were designed to serve a limited number of business applications under controlled environments. Picture a storage facility floor where
Unless the FCC Acts, A New Technology Could Disrupt Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is popular. Really popular. 4 billion devices popular. So popular that more broadband data is carried over Wi-Fi than all other platforms combined. But is the miracle of Wi-Fi in jeopardy? It may be because the lifeblood of Wi-Fi – unlicensed spectrum – is potentially at risk by the deployment of a new technology called LTE-U that may not play well with others in the unlicensed sand box. It could cause massive interference problems to Wi-Fi. Although some wireless carriers developing these LTE-based technologies have acknowledged the need to share spectrum fairly with unlicensed
Future of Wi-Fi Predicted in Cisco Visual Networking Index
Earlier this week, Cisco released their latest Visual Networking Index. It offers forecasts and data on everything from IP traffic to mobile growth drivers and perhaps most interesting to us, the latest Wi-Fi usage statistics. We’ve known for some time that Wi-Fi carries more data than any other Internet medium. According to Cisco, this trend will continue through the end of the decade. So we ask the question, “How far can Wi-Fi take us?”
From INTX Talks: The Ballpark Goes Broadband
When you consider that most NFL stadiums are at least 22 years old, it should be no surprise to hear that many sports venues are in the process of receiving major digital overhauls to keep up with new technologies, the demand for connectivity everywhere and the current standards of the modern fan experience. That was the topic to talk about in today’s INTX Talk: The Ballpark Goes Broadband. The San Francisco Giants were one of the first teams to incorporate Wi-Fi in their stadium. At first there was little use for it – very few of us were working from the game. But within a handful of years
How Spectrum Sharing Will Lead to Better Wi-Fi
Hardly 15 years old, Wi-Fi technology has become the connective tissue binding our digital lifestyles. It was developed from the scrap heap of wireless spectrum to become one of the most critical technologies of our day. In fact, Wi-Fi carries more data than any other medium – more than 12,000 petabytes per month. The cable industry has invested heavily in Wi-Fi to extend the consumer broadband experience well beyond the home. We’ve built over 300,000 publicly accessible hotspots and worked hard to push the technical possibilities of home and outdoor broadband. But the frequencies currently
Wanted: More Spectrum, Better Wi-Fi
As our technological and digital demands increase and devices expand, so will our need for more spectrum. Fortunately, there is a solution to the Wi-Fi crunch. By freeing up more spectrum and allowing it to be used by unlicensed technologies, we could jump start a new generation of Wi-Fi available in more places and at much higher speeds.