MULTI-GIGABIT WIRELKESS NETWORKING

By M.S.Welles

A standard is going to be created for multi-gigabit short range wireless networking by a consortium of Microsoft, 17 chip makers and consumer electronics companies.

The Gigbit Wireless Alliance (WiGig) intends to have the first draft of a specification available by the end of 2009. The Alliance is an effort to unite a wide range of vendors behind a unified standard and insure interoperability among a diverse group of products through a testing and certification program.

The WiGig standard uses the largely unused 60 GHz frequency to achieve a data rate of up to 6Gbps. Actual maximum throughput is just over 5Gbps.

There will be a low-power option aimed at mobile and battery-powered devices which will have a minimum throughput of 1Gbps.

The WiGig spec will use the 60GHz band, available worldwide and unlicensed. The frequency has been allocated large amounts of bandwidth in the U.S. and abroad. With very high data rates, WiGig radios would be able to stream uncompressed high quality video.

A wide range of products is expected to be developed to make use of the WiGig standard and be integrated into computer networking.

The WiGig Alliance plans to work closely with the IEEE 802.11ad task group which is already working on a formal multi-gigabit WLAN standard based on the 60GHz band.