IEEE 802.11ac

This new 802.11ac WiFi technology is going to be released in two waves; wave 1 & wave 2 with wave 1 in-process now.  Early adopters have already been releasing products as seen here: Best 802.11ac routers

With the expectation that this technology will be mainstream by 2015, it’s also backward compatible with all older A, B, G & N wireless technologies.

In fact, it actually builds upon the older 802.11n standard that has already been widely adopted.

…and… The throughput is off the charts!  These improvements allow 802.11ac to deliver a theoretical 1.3Gbps (or about 3x the performance of 802.11n) by using wider channel bandwidth and an increased number of spatial streams.  Additional benefits include a wider coverage area as well as “CleanAir technology” to combat performance problems due to wireless interference, and active antenna power-down saving battery life on mobile devices.

The actual real-world-results are to be determined after wide-scale product deployment and testing around the globe; hence one of the reasons why there are 2 planned releases of this technology.

Cisco Aironet Access Point Module for 802.11ac (including short video data sheets)