Showing posts with label NAN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NAN. Show all posts

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Roadmap of wifi: For coming years...

Is wifi saturated? whats coming up in wifi world?
Lately, i have been hearing this question a lot and decided to find an answer.

I believe that the field of wifi is very busy in the coming years, technology wise not so much change, the basic protocol remains same and so are the basic rules, but its more user-centric now and more real world scenario based. Lets take a look at the things coming up and soon in wifi

Lets divide the upcoming things in wifi in to technology based and user based.This time less text and more crisp no detailed technical analysis :-) , because most of these things have a roadmap of around 2015-2016, many of the TG's are in the nascent state.

Technology Centric: IEEE

User Centric: WFA

802.11 ac
PHY Changes
256 QAM, MU-MIMO, Beamforming, BW signalling,
Wifi Miracast
On top of P2P based Sharing ending Video and Audio over wifi, eg: project your video from laptop to TV
802.11aq
MAC Changes
Low Power Pre-association discovery
Neighbour aware networking
On top of P2P with
Low power pre-association discovery and Information sharing, Get a pop up if the information matches then proceed through normal connection (P2P/AP)
802.11ah
PHY Changes
sub 1GHz < 1GHz (excluding TV) spectrum and 1,2,4,8,16 MHz bandwidths, over 1KM distances and 300 Kbps
Low Power
Large STA association
Improvised legacy Powersave
Wifi Docking
P2P based Connecting Multiple peripheral using wifi
802.11ad
PHY Changes
Gigabit Wifi, 60 GHz Unlicensed
WNM Powersave
Max Idle Periods, Proxy ARP, WoW, Convert Multicast to Unicast (Direct/Flexible)
802.11af
PHY Changes
Wifi TV: SUB 1GHz TV band
Optional AC for spectrum sense
Wifi Smart Grid
Smart Energy Profiles 2.0 compatible with non-wifi as well eg. Zigbee.
802.11ae
MAC Changes
Prioritization of Management frames


802.11ai
MAC Changes
Fast initial link setup: < 100ms data connection
Lesser Management Frames



In short, we have got all the three tracks covered IEEE is working on huge

                     Major PHY changes : 

        • Spectrum     : 3.7GHz, sub 1GHz, 60GHz
        • Bandwidth   : 1, 2,4,8 and 16 MHz
        • Low power   : Energey Efficient
        • FSN OFDM : 64 subcarriers (Fixed Subcarrier Number)

                    Minor MAC changes 

        • All advanced WFA programs are P2P based.
        • Fast Discovery
        • Fast Connection, 
        • Efficient and Long powersave, 
        • QoS for Management,


where as WFA is working on IOT and End-User scenarios and applications.

So for coming 5 years i would say wifi has lots of work to do. Especially the standard 802.11ah and ad are very popular among engineers and companies and are highest attended TG's.

Any more new ideas/use cases for wifi ? Please share your opinion.