Qualcomm Advances 802.11ax Wireless Networking

Later this year, IT organizations can expect to see a new generation of wireless access points that will more efficiently consume network services in a way that should also considerably boost the battery life of most mobile computing devices.

Qualcomm Technologies Inc. today unveiled new processor technologies that comply with an 802.11ax standard that is expected to be formally ratified in the near future. Gopi Sirineni, vice president of product management for Qualcomm, says the primary benefit of the new standard is to improve overall throughput by a factor of four as part of an effort to provide a better application experience. The standard helps accomplish that goal by applying technologies and concepts that were originally pioneered for use on 4G carrier networks, says Sirineni.

“It addresses congestion issues on the network,” says Sirineni.

The result will be wireless networks that can support 12-streams (eight 5GHz and four 2.4GHz), 8×8 MU-MIMO as well as 80 MHz channels.

Sirineni says mobile devices will benefit from an energy perspective because there will be more bands available per access point. That in turn should result in an increase in battery life by about two-thirds, says Sireneni.

Naturally, it may take a while for organizations to upgrade their wireless networks, so much of the mobile computing experience is likely to remain uneven for some time to come. But those end users that do finds themselves on an 802.11ax network are likely to soon notice a demonstrably better experience over existing Wi-Fi networks.