Wi

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Wi

For the most up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites.

It’s always hard for Franz Lupo to keep his phone charged, and he’s using some of that juice to talk with me. From a San Francisco Bay Area town where he lives in a tent, Lupo tells me over the phone that he typically goes to Starbucks or the local library to restore his battery to full bars. 

With these places closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, however, Lupo has come to rely on a carwash with a power outlet he can access after hours. 

“It’s hard to find a place around here that will let you come in and charge the phone,” he said, a hint of Texas drawl in his voice.

The phone, which the 67-year-old got through a federally administered program called Lifeline, helps Lupo stay in touch with a doctor who monitors his heart problem. He also uses his phone to keep in touch with social service workers, some of whom have to stay away due to social distancing requirements even while they’re helping Lupo access Social Security payments and his stimulus check. One of the first things he wants to buy when the payments come through is a portable phone charger.

(After the publication of this story, Lupo got approved to move into a hotel as part of a county program to protect people with pre-existing health risks. He also received a solar-powered phone charger.)

What’s up with Wi-Fi

Lupo isn’t alone. With most of the US under orders to stay at home, many people are relying on their phones and computers to stay connected to the outside world through the internet. The roughly 550,000 homeless people in the US also need these services but are struggling to protect phones from thieves, keep them charged and connect them to the internet. And many people who aren’t homeless still don’t have an internet connection where they live. 

As a result, people can’t access quick information about unemployment benefits, the status of their stimulus check and other vital services millions of people are relying on as the economy reels. People with children are also struggling to keep kids connected to school. 

Social services, city governments and libraries are trying to fill the gap by providing tech, internet connections, and important updates about the virus to people who need it. People are accessing Wi-Fi from outside library buildings or with borrowed Wi-Fi hotspots. Electricity is available in some city-sanctioned encampments and at public charging stations. 

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A San Francisco resident in 2015 learns about the Lifeline program, which offers free phones, minutes and broadband to people receiving benefits like disability or food stamps. A phone can do amazing things, “when you do have it,” said a service provider.


James Martin/CNET

Just having a phone, like Lupo does, gives people relying on homeless services a big boost, says Jenny Robbins, chief of programs for Contra Costa County Health, Housing and Homeless Services in Northern California. 

“When you do have it,” she said, “it’s amazing what it can do for you.”

The need for phones, electricity and internet far outstrips what’s available. Robbins says she’s holding out hope that wealthy donors in Silicon Valley will step in to help their neighbors who are homeless during the public health crisis, and beyond.

The simple problem of keeping phones charged is especially tough, Robbins says, adding that there’s also need for a big-picture solution, like putting charging stations at food distribution centers. For now, Robbins’ agency has secured funding for solar-powered phone chargers, which they have just started distributing to people living outside, she said.

Knowledge and power outlets

Kristen Calvert, a manager with the Dallas Public Library, says one library location is near an emergency shelter in her city and residents often come by the library for help. Even though the library building is closed now, people continued congregating outside looking for technical assistance, she says. For a while, the librarians went out and helped them.

Sometimes Calvert helped people navigate an online form, like a woman who needed help submitting information related to her stimulus check. Other times, Calvert or another librarian took a person’s device inside and charged it for them. 

Now the library is helping people through the Dallas Office of Homeless Solutions, but no longer outside the building. At the time, it was like an open air reference desk, Calvert says, with one-on-one interactions to help people with questions. “That’s who we always are,” she said, “but even more so right now.”

Internet connections from outside

New York public library buildings are closed, but patrons are accessing the internet from outside. The libraries have seen more than 20,000 Wi-Fi sessions at locations throughout the city since stay-at-home orders took effect in March. 

The numbers aren’t surprising, since about 20% of New Yorkers don’t have home internet or mobile data plans, says Brian Bannon, the Merryl and James Tisch Director of The New York Public Library. The library also had 1,200 Wi-Fi hotspots checked out to families with school-aged children and no home internet when they closed their buildings. (The hotspots then got an upgrade to 20 gigabytes from 3GB of monthly high-speed data.)

It still isn’t enough to connect everyone who needs internet access, Bannon says, adding that it will help to get broadband in more homes as a plan recently adopted by New York City aims to do. 

“In the meantime,” he said, “we’ll leave our Wi-Fi on.”

Tech brings independence

Andrew Constantino says internet connections should be a public utility, available to all, including people who are homeless. Constantino is in the process of moving into permanent housing, leaving behind his place in a tiny home village tucked between a fire station and a Boeing airfield in Seattle. 

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Andrew Constantino and his partner Hattie Rhodes on Halloween at the tiny house village in Seattle where they both lived until finding housing in April. Constantino says internet access helps people who are homeless function in society.


Courtesy of Andrew Constantino

The colorfully painted tiny homes offer people staying at the city-sanctioned village the ability to keep their possessions, including phones and chargers, safe, Constantino says. The security of the village, along with permanent Wi-Fi hotspots from the Seattle Public Library, has helped residents take care of their own needs during the pandemic. 

They’ve been able to research the stimulus program and share information to help residents access their payments, he says, in addition to looking up recommendations from the CDC about COVID-19.

Constantino says the internet gives people independence, adding, “I don’t know how you expect those living in poverty, without housing, to take part in society, to become productive members of such, without those basic needs met.”

A bridge to housing

From his tent in Northern California, Lupo tells me his phone is also helping him stay in touch with the people helping him apply for housing. In addition to a portable phone charger, he wants to put his stimulus and Social Security money toward a subsidized apartment for seniors. 

“I’m trying everything I can to get into one of them,” he said.


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Wi

Wi-Fi 6 is just now arriving in phones, laptops and network equipment. But engineers are already turning their attention to what’ll come next: Wi-Fi 7. With speeds as high as 30 gigabits per second, the next generation of Wi-Fi promises better streaming video, longer range and fewer problems with traffic congestion.

The change will come in a series of steps, beginning with improvements to Wi-Fi 6, that lay the groundwork for the expected arrival of Wi-Fi 7 in 2024.

“I’m excited about delivering a gigabit everywhere in your house, every nook and cranny,” said V.K. Jones, Qualcomm’s vice president of technology. “You’ll be at the point where wireless is faster than wired.”

In a talk and subsequent interview at Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi Day in August, Jones shared some details on how Wi-Fi 7 will work. He expects three phases of improvements over today’s Wi-Fi 6, which in technical circles is called 802.11ax.

The first expected improvement will give Wi-Fi 6 more capacity, with new airwaves that US and European governments are likely to open up for radio transmission as soon as next year. Second, an update to Wi-Fi 6 in 2022 should improve its speeds, especially for people uploading data like videos from phones or PCs. Third, and perhaps most interesting, is a collection of Wi-Fi upgrades expected in 2024 and still known only by its technical name of 802.11be.

Nobody’s quite ready to officially call that new version Wi-Fi 7. That includes the Wi-Fi Alliance, the consortium that comes up with the numbers and bestows its Wi-Fi logo on products that pass its certification tests. Heck, its program to certify Wi-Fi 6 products only begins later this year.

Still, you don’t have to be a soothsayer to see this future. The last three Wi-Fi engineering standards — IEEE 802.11n, 802.11ac, and 802.11ax — have been certified as Wi-Fi 4, 5 and 6, respectively. So 802.11be is a strong candidate to receive the Wi-Fi 7 label.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, which develops the 802.11 standards that the Wi-Fi Alliance later certifies, is already at work on 802.11be. It’s the IEEE working group that proposed the 30Gbps speed in its project authorization request. For comparison, CNET’s tests so far have shown Wi-Fi 6 delivering a maximum of 1.3Gbps. The working group also seeks to reduce communication delays to improve performance for latency-sensitive activities like gaming.

First Wi-Fi improvement: 6GHz airwaves

The first big change is likely to come from governmental largesse. Today’s Wi-Fi uses two radio frequency bands: 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The US and Europe, though, are working on releasing a huge new swath at 6GHz.

“This is very juicy real estate,” Jones said of the new spectrum, predicting that it’ll quadruple speeds when you’re at work or watching a game in a stadium.

VK Jones, vice president of technology at wireless technology power Qualcomm, shows how congested Wi-Fi networks already are in San Francisco.VK Jones, vice president of technology at wireless technology power Qualcomm, shows how congested Wi-Fi networks already are in San Francisco.

V.K. Jones, vice president of technology at wireless technology power Qualcomm, shows how congested Wi-Fi networks already are in San Francisco.


Stephen Shankland/CNET

The only way devices will be allowed to use this frequency band is through Wi-Fi 6 and later versions of the technology. That means older devices won’t gum up the works. “You don’t have all these crap legacy devices hanging around that don’t really know how to share,” said Kevin Krewell, an analyst at Tirias Research.

One problem: Some telecommunications companies already use parts of the 6GHz band in specific locations. Fortunately, network engineers know where those beams run and can work around that with what amounts to a fancy map called the Automated Frequency Coordinator, or AFC.

Convincing the government this system works will be the biggest challenge for opening up the 6GHz band, says Rishi Grover, a senior director at network equipment maker CommScope.


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But Jones is confident it’s a solvable problem. “We’re used to dealing with sharing spectrum,” he said. “It’s up to us to convince ourselves and the rest of the world we can protect these incumbents.”

Of course, the 6GHz spectrum will eventually fill up with traffic, too, Endpoint Technologies analyst Roger Kay predicted. “They all talk about 6GHz as the wide open spaces: ‘You can just let your cattle run wild out there.’ The reality is that contention will fill the channel just like every other one over time,” Kay said. “Still, it’ll be nice for a while.”

Phase two: Wi-Fi’s uplink upgrade

In 2022, another change should come to today’s Wi-Fi 6, delivering promised features of 802.11ax. Specifically, expect a triple-whammy acronym, UL MU-MIMO. That stands for uplink multiuser multiple-input multiple-output. Whew!

MIMO, already built into Wi-Fi 4 and 5, takes advantage of the fact that radio transmissions sent from one device to another often take multiple paths, bouncing in different ways off things like walls, furniture and cars. By sending different data over different paths, you can get more out of the existing airwaves.

Qualcomm demonstrated coming improvements to Wi-Fi upload speeds by live-streaming a painter with 10 mobile phones.Qualcomm demonstrated coming improvements to Wi-Fi upload speeds by live-streaming a painter with 10 mobile phones.

Qualcomm demonstrates coming improvements to Wi-Fi upload speeds by livestreaming a painter, using 10 mobile phones. The new UL MU-MIMO technology handles the video stream smoothly, but older technology produces video stutters.


Stephen Shankland/CNET

Wi-Fi 6’s first phase, arriving now, brings the multiuser upgrade, MU-MIMO, which means an access point can beam MIMO data to several devices at once. The second uplink phase will speed devices uploading data to the network.

At Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi Day, the company demonstrated UL MU-MIMO with 10 phones livestreaming a woman painting a colorful landscape. The three phones that supported UL MU-MIMO sent an uninterrupted video of her brush strokes, while the video from the other seven phones often paused for seconds at a time.

Phase Three: Wi-Fi’s better beams

That brings us to 802.11be, the Wi-Fi 7 contender likely to arrive in 2024 with another improvement to MIMO.

It’s called coordinated multiuser MIMO, or CMU-MIMO. “It’s very hard to get it to work, and it may not even make it,” Jones said, but if it does, expect another boost to Wi-Fi speed, range and traffic decongestion. 

Wi-Fi 6’s MU-MIMO lets network equipment makers build access points with an eight-antenna arrangement, but 802.11be will handle 16. And that opens the door for CMU-MIMO.

The “cooperative” part of CMU-MIMO comes because all those antennas need not necessarily be on a single access point, Jones said. To improve coverage across bigger houses and businesses, the Wi-Fi industry is moving toward mesh networks with multiple access points. 

Dividing those antennas among different devices would mean a better ability to send different data in different devices — “spatial resolution,” in network parlance — and thereby increasing the overall network performance, Jones said. You could imagine two access points with eight antennas each, or four access points with four each.

“When they work together they can get more out of the spectrum,” Jones said. “Spectrum is the lifeblood of all wireless systems.”

Other 802.11be changes

Also on tap for 802.11be is the ability to send data on multiple frequencies at the same time.

Today’s networks send data to devices using either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands. 802.11be will be able to use two bands at once and maybe all three, Jones said. That’s like holding three phone conversations at once — hard for a human, but not such a big deal for computers.

Then there’s an upgrade that squeezes more information into a radio signal. It’s called 4096-QAM, an improvement in quadrature amplitude modulation, a signal-handling technology. Wi-Fi 6 uses 1024-QAM. Bigger is better.

But speeding up Wi-Fi by pushing the limits of physics and engineering is tough, and Jones isn’t making any promises about what’ll actually arrive.

“We all have been through this rodeo many times,” Jones said. “We know how hard it is to get this stuff to work.”

Meet the Wi-Fi 6 routers that support 802.11ax

tp-link-archer-ax6000-wi-fi-6-router-wifi-manufacturer-promo-pictp-link-archer-ax6000-wi-fi-6-router-wifi-manufacturer-promo-pic

asus-rt-ax88u-wi-fi-6-router-wifiasus-rt-ax88u-wi-fi-6-router-wifi

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Wi

We get it. 5G is a big deal. But honestly, you likely use Wi-Fi networks as much or more with your phone and PC, so tune out the 5G noise for a moment and appreciate what’s coming with Wi-Fi 6.

“While 5G is getting much of the limelight, Wi-Fi 6 will have a bigger impact in our connected lives — and sooner,” said FeibusTech analyst Mike Feibus.

Wi-Fi 6, the consumer-friendly new name for the tech standard actually called 802.11ax, won’t just boost data-transfer speeds — though it’ll do that, by a factor of three or so. It’ll also reach into corners of our house farther away from network gear, better handle the crush of people at airports and stadiums, and sidestep interference from your neighbors’ noisy network. On your phone or laptop, it should save your battery life, too.

No wonder wireless chip designer Qualcomm is betting big on Wi-Fi 6. The company on Tuesday showed off a quartet of processors that’ll bring Wi-Fi 6 to a new range of network equipment — and a number of partnerships designed to telegraph its clout with the technology. 

Wi-Fi is ubiquitous and widely accepted,” said Rahul Patel, leader of Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi chip division in an exclusive interview with CNET ahead of Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi event. But with more devices in our houses, and activities like gaming and streaming video putting new demands on networks, there’s a network traffic jam, he said.

“Cord cutting is real. What was typically one TV in the average home is now five or six different screens,” Patel said. “There’s a tremendous amount of content sourced through the home that wasn’t before. There’s a congestion problem.”

Upgrades — if you pay

One of Wi-Fi 6’s biggest advances is OFDMA — orthogonal frequency division multiple access, if you must know — an efficiency-boosting technology purloined from mobile networks. Another is MU MIMO, short for multiple user, multiple input, multiple output. And then there’s 1024 QAM — quadrature amplitude modulation — which bumps up data rates by 30%.

Check my colleague Ry Crist’s Wi-Fi 6 explainer for all the details. But here’s what it boils down to, compared with Wi-Fi 5, aka 802.11ac:

  • Double the range — though Qualcomm has built-in mesh networking technology that’ll let multiple wireless access points cooperate to bathe your house in Wi-Fi radio signals.
  • Triple the speed — useful not just for watching 4K video but also for uploading from our phones.
  • Better reliability — good for avoiding video chats plagued by stuttering.

Before you get too excited about Wi-Fi 6’s improvements, though, remember that you won’t benefit from Wi-Fi 6 in your home unless you buy new network gear — or wait for your internet service provider like AT&T, Verizon or Comcast to upgrade what they likely supplied you with.

Rahul Patel, general manager of Qualcomm's connectivity and networking businessRahul Patel, general manager of Qualcomm's connectivity and networking business

Rahul Patel, general manager of Qualcomm’s connectivity and networking business


Stephen Shankland/CNET

Don’t hold your breath for that. But even there, the shortcomings of today’s Wi-Fi will push ISPs to invest in home network equipment when frustrated customers call, Patel said. “The last thing Comcast wants is a loss of a subscriber to AT&T.” 

That’s only one side of the Wi-Fi 6 network. You’ll also need new PCs, phones, video streamers, security cameras, smart speakers and anything else that would benefit from Wi-Fi 6’s new range and speed. (Though a few phones like the Samsung Galaxy S10 include Wi-Fi 6.) 

Qualcomm ships 4 billion Wi-Fi chips

Qualcomm isn’t the only company hoping to siphon off some of your upgrade budget. Intel is already selling its Wi-Fi chips, and Patel acknowledges that Broadcom — his former employer for 13 years — is a serious competitor.

But Qualcomm has a lot of power. It’s shipped 4 billion chips since 2005, the company revealed for the first time. And its strength in smartphones gives it an ability to ensure new network technology works on both sides of the network connection.

Nearly every one of the 225 phone models using Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 855 processor also uses the company’s Wi-Fi chips, the company said. And even though Wi-Fi 6 hasn’t yet arrived in phones, even its existing Wi-Fi 5 products will be able to tap into a battery-saving Wi-Fi 6 technology called target wake time (TWT) that lets phones snooze more often and wake up for network activity less.

Qualcomm’s chips reeled in Rivet Networks, a company that sells network modules to demanding gaming PC buyers.

“Intel was first to market, and their hardware is really solid, so it made sense for us to introduce Wi-Fi 6 to PCs based on their chipset,” said Rivet Chief Executive Michael Cubbage. But it’ll use Qualcomm chips in newer products. “There is a lot of cool stuff we can do with it,” like simultaneous dual-band access that lets Rivet send top-priority gaming and communication data over the fast 5GHz channel and keep everything else out of the way on the 2.4GHz band, Rivet said.

Qualcomm has four Wi-Fi 6 chips for networking equipment. The top-end Networking Pro 1200 can handle a whopping 1,500 simultaneous connections to phones, PCs and other devices.Qualcomm has four Wi-Fi 6 chips for networking equipment. The top-end Networking Pro 1200 can handle a whopping 1,500 simultaneous connections to phones, PCs and other devices.

Qualcomm has four Wi-Fi 6 chips for networking equipment. The top-end Networking Pro 1200 can handle a whopping 1,500 simultaneous connections to phones, PCs and other devices.


Qualcomm

Even with Wi-Fi 6’s advantages, Patel doesn’t expect a rush to upgrade access points. Most people stick with what they have in the house. But you’ll still benefit from Wi-Fi 6, he predicts, because some of its biggest advantages come in places like universities, airports, hotels and offices, where lots of people are using the Wi-Fi network.

Better Wi-Fi outside your home

Some of the companies most excited by Wi-Fi 6 are those that cater to customers with hundreds of users. The top-end new Qualcomm chip, the Networking Pro 1200, can handle a whopping 1,500 simultaneous connections to devices like phones and PCs.

“Wi-Fi 6 … breaks the mold of existing Wi-Fi design to allow true high-density and simultaneous connectivity,” said Dave Chen, a marketing manager at Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s Aruba subsidiary. By using multiple radios on its access points, each of its Wi-Fi 6 products can accommodate thousands of devices.

Wi-Fi 6 is more responsive and predictable, too. “This does wonders where large numbers of users are simultaneously accessing latency-sensitive applications like Wi-Fi calling, 4K streaming video and even augmented reality,” he said.

Qualcomm President Cristiano AmonQualcomm President Cristiano Amon

Qualcomm President Cristiano Amon says Wi-Fi 6 and 5G networks complement each other.


Stephen Shankland/CNET

Aruba is enthusiastic about Qualcomm’s new chips — but not so enthusiastic that it overlooks rivals. It’s been selling Wi-Fi 6 network gear since the end of 2018.

The upshot is that your life online should get better at home and away.

“Wi-Fi 6 is really a sea change. It’s so much better at handling traffic and keeping it moving — through all corners of the home,” Feibus said. “Pick your next router carefully. If you do it right, you’re not likely going to need to buy another one for a very long time.”

And one of Qualcomm’s top executives, President Cristiano Amon, isn’t afraid to raise expectations about the new technology.

“The benefits are so significant that I believe this is the most significant Wi-Fi technology transition to date,” Amon said.

Originally published Aug. 27, 10 a.m. PT.Update, 10:32 a.m. PT: Adds details from Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi event.

Meet the Wi-Fi 6 routers that support 802.11ax

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Wi-Fi naming is getting a makeover — and it’s not a moment too soon. 

Until now, Wi-Fi standards have been an alphanumeric soup with designations like 802.11g, 802.11n and 802.11ac. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the letters didn’t seem to “mean” anything. Is 11g faster than 11ac, just because it’s higher in the alphabet? Actually, no — it’s slower. 

That’s why the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry consortium that manages wireless networking standards, is rebranding the different generations of Wi-Fi. The newest, fastest version of Wi-Fi will be 802.11ax, but you are unlikely to see devices marketed as such. Instead, the 802.11ax standard will more simply be labeled as Wi-Fi 6. Why 6? Because it is the sixth generation of the wireless networking standard. Just as Nigel Tufnel knew 11 was greater than 10, the Wi-Fi Alliance is making it clear that Wi-Fi 6 is faster (read: better) than Wi-Fi 5, which in turn is greater than Wi-Fi 4. 

If you watched Samsung’s rollout of the Galaxy S10, then you may have seen the phone championed as supporting Wi-Fi 6; it is the first phone with Wi-Fi 6 capability. You are certain to see other phones along with tablets, TVs, laptops, doorbells, washing machines, routers and other devices released later this year with Wi-Fi 6 support.

What is Wi-Fi 6, and how is it better than the previous flavors of Wi-Fi? Let’s wade into the Wi-Fi sea and find out.

Read more: Here come Wi-Fi 4, 5 and 6 in plan to simplify 802.11 networking names

Wi-Fi by the generation

Wi-Fi 6 features a number of capabilities that don’t show up in a comparison chart, but let’s start with such a chart to explain the basics of how Wi-Fi 6 compares to the two previous versions of Wi-Fi.

Standard

Year released

Max data rate

Frequency bands

Spatial streams

Wi-Fi 4

IEEE 802.11n

2009

150 Mbps

2.4GHz and 5GHz

1

Wi-Fi 5

IEEE 802.11ac

2014

3.5 Gbps

5GHz

4

Wi-Fi 6

IEEE 802.11ax

2019

9.6 Gbps

2.4GHz and 5GHz

8

Read this PDF at Wi-Fi.org for more info.

First three Wi-Fi generations

With its new naming scheme, the Wi-Fi Alliance jumps in at Wi-Fi 4 — similar to the Star Wars franchise that started with Episode 4: A New Hope. And as with Star Wars, we couldn’t have arrived at Wi-Fi 6 without three prequels. The Wi-Fi Alliance’s new version numbers don’t extend back to the first three generations of Wi-Fi, but it’s easy to match them up, even if they’re not being officially renamed:

  • Wi-Fi 1 = 802.11a
  • Wi-Fi 2 = 802.11b
  • Wi-Fi 3 = 802.11g

But, long story short: If you have a product that’s topping out at 802.11g or slower, it’s probably pretty old.

Wi-Fi 6 advantages

Wi-Fi 6 has a higher maximum data rate in theory at up to 9.6Gbps than previous versions, but you are unlikely to hit that top speed in real-world scenarios — much less need to. Wi-Fi 6 has more going for it, however, than higher data rates. Its biggest advantage, perhaps, is its ability to handle crowded Wi-Fi networks more effectively than the current Wi-Fi 5 standard.

Not only does Wi-Fi 6’s higher data rate give it more bandwidth to divvy up among multiple devices, but it also introduces new technologies to help it better manage those devices without performance slowing down. Because in 2019, you no longer have just a single PC connected to the Internet. Instead, on a given evening you might be streaming Netflix on your TV as your significant other or roommate is watching Hulu on a tablet, as your kid plays Fortnite on a laptop, with all three of you checking Twitter, Reddit, Instagram or Pinterest on your phones as your smart fridge, washing machine and doorbell also check in on your network.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, Wi-Fi 6 access points will be more adept at handling larger numbers of devices at the same time thanks to multi-user multiple input, multiple output (MU-MIMO) and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA). MU-MIMO lets more data be transferred at the same time, giving your router a greater ability to handle a multitude of devices simultaneously, and OFDMA increases efficiency and lowers latency and allows more devices to operate on each channel.

And there are more channels. Wi-Fi 6 features eight MU-MIMO or spatial channels — double the number you get with Wi-Fi 5 —  giving your router more room to send and receive data from the various Wi-Fi devices in your home.

In addition to being able to talk to more devices more effectively, Wi-Fi 6 will deliver better battery life for smart home devices. It features Target Wake Time (TWT), which makes your router smarter about how it communicates with IoT devices so that they can sleep more and wake less while still doing their job.

When can I get Wi-Fi 6?

We will see the first Wi-Fi 6 devices this spring. The Samsung Galaxy S10 is the first family of phones announced with Wi-Fi 6 support — they’re available for preorder now ahead of a March 8 release. You can expect other phones to follow along with tablets, laptops and other devices.

There is a catch, of course: In order for your Wi-Fi 6 devices to work at optimal speeds, it’ll need to communicate with a Wi-Fi 6 access point. Those are starting to trickle out as well, starting with TP-Link routers that are out now and continuing with Netgear’s Orbi mesh router in the second half of the year. 

In the meantime, though, Wi-Fi 6 devices will work perfectly well with Wi-Fi 5 and older routers. They just won’t communicate as quickly or as efficiently as they would if it was a Wi-Fi 6 connection.

Read more: Getting a Galaxy S10 phone or already did? Start here

First published Feb. 26 at 9:42 a.m. PT.

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There’s no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Now apparently the same goes for Wi-Fi.

Students in the cafeteria at China’s Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics must solve a calculus equation to get the school Wi-Fi password, state media Global Times reported Sunday. The password lies within the answer to the problem, according to instructions seen in pictures posted by the student union.

That’s not the only hurdle facing students for internet access across the campus. An eight-note melody containing the password to the Wi-Fi connection awaits students at the school’s Xinyuan Library Restaurant.

“We chose a music notation problem for the Xinyuan Library Restaurant because [there are] more liberal arts students,” an employee known only as Ji told the Global Times, adding that a math problem was picked for the cafeteria because there were more engineering students, many of whom have solved the equation.

Despite the challenge, students aren’t worried about their internet access. Users commented on Weibo that once a student solves the equation, they’ll just share the answer and everyone will get their sweet internet access. It’s not known if passwords will remain the same every day, though.

Others suggest the calculus problem is a test of foundation, so you should be able to solve it if you’ve paid attention during class.

“The students from NUAA are all super nerds. They love new things. It must be fun for them,” a teacher told the Global Times.

CNET has reached out to the school for a comment.


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Facebook and Qualcomm are teaming up to bring super-fast Wi-Fi to built-up urban areas, the two companies announced  Monday.

Qualcomm said it will integrate Facebook’s Terragraph technology, which uses high-frequency radio waves to speed up networks where populations are dense, into its upcoming chipsets. Terragraph is a millimeter-wavelength, 60GHz wireless system that serves as an alternative when laying fiber becomes impossible or too expensive.

“With Terragraph, our goal is to enable people living in urban areas to access high-quality connectivity that can help create new opportunities and strengthen communities,” said Yael Maguire, vice president of connectivity at Facebook.

The two companies said they expect to begin trials of the technology in mid-2019.

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The Wi-Fi version of Samsung’s two Galaxy Tab S tablets go on sale in the US in a few weeks, arriving on June 27. Amazon, Best Buy, and Sears are a few of the retailers selling the 8.4-inch and 10.5-inch slates, which you can also buy directly from Samsung.com.

The smaller tablet costs $400, while its larger kin comes in for $500. Hopefully all the brick-and-mortar retailers will carry both tablets in white and bronze shades, though be warned that some may only stock one color.

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If you prefer your Galaxy Tab S to surf a data network, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon will all carry LTE versions of at least one size, sometime later this year.

Be sure to check out our initial impressions in CNET’s Galaxy Tab S hands-on.

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More subway stations in New York City will get Wi-Fi and mobile service this year.

Wireless hardware provider Transit Wireless has unveiled the start of Phase Two of its wireless rollout project with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The new phase will start by setting up wireless service for 11 stations in midtown Manhattan, including Grand Central Terminal, 34th St. Herald Square, and Bryant Park.

From there, service will expand to Queens as construction of a Secure Base Station Hotel begins in March. That base station will provide a home for the necessary equipment from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, and Sprint. The wireless carriers are providing the network components, while Boingo Wireless adds the Wi-Fi piece.

Scheduled to finish in June, Phase Two will provide almost 250 million annual NYC subway riders with Internet access, according to Transit Wireless.

“This is a huge benefit to all the visitors and tourists that come to New York City every day,” Transit Wireless CEO William Bayne Jr. said in a statement. “We are not only extending our network to all underground stations in Queens and additional stations in Manhattan, we are setting the stage for future innovations that will provide riders with an enhanced experience in the New York City subway system.”

Launched last year, Phase One of the project brought wireless access to 36 NYC subway stations. The existing Wi-Fi network saw 2.6 million connections and processed more than 60 terabytes of data in 2013, Transit Wireless said.

The ultimate goal of the project is to bring wireless service to all 277 of New York City subway stations by 2017.

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Streaming high-definition video wirelessly throughout your home will be a major benefit of Wi-Fi 802.11ac in the next few years, says NPD In-Stat.

Expected to receive final approval by the IEEE toward the end of this year, 802.11ac will boast several improvements over 802.11n. The new wireless flavor will offer speeds surpassing 1 gigabit per second, almost three times that of 802.11n. It also promises to provide better coverage throughout an entire home with fewer dead spots.

From a technical standpoint, the new standard will use such technologies as beamforming and higher amplitude modulation to send more data faster and more efficiently than 802.11n, NPD In-Stat analyst Gregory Potter told CNET. And 802.11ac will help smartphones and other mobile devices by providing higher bandwidth and a savings in power compared with 802.11n.

As 802.11ac starts to hit a variety of gadgets, including laptops, smartphones, tablets, and TVs, Potter sees high-definition video as the major beneficiary.

“The primary use case for consumers using 802.11ac is for video distribution,” the analyst said late last week. “One scenario would be utilizing 802.11ac in a cable or satellite set top box for distribution of video to multiple televisions outside the main viewing area. Another would be utilizing 802.11ac on a smartphone to stream HD video directly to a television.”

Once 802.11ac is approved this year, it will then be ready for certification by the Wi-Fi Alliance in early 2013, Potter explained. That will then pave the way for its full adoption by technology and consumer electronics companies.

At first, though, the industry will likely release a slew of “draft” 802.11ac devices, just as was seen with Wireless-N. Several vendors already showed off some of their upcoming 802.11ac products at CES earlier this month, including Buffalo, which demoed its first wireless router powered by the new protocol.

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The first smartphones sporting 802.11ac will pop up early in 2013, forecasts Potter. Digital televisions adopting the new standard will also appear next year, with NPD In-Stat projecting more than 2 million 802.11ac-equipped TVs .

But consumers will probably have to wait until around 2015 before 802.11ac really latches onto the market.

At that point, the analyst expects 802.11ac to appear in more than 18 million routers, 25 million TVs, 129 million tablets, 184 million notebooks, and 279 million smartphones. Altogether, around 1 billion devices equipped with the new standard are forecast to ship in another three years.

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The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned this week of a security flaw in a popular tool intended to make it easier to add additional devices to a secure Wi-Fi network.


GearXS

On Tuesday, the organization, known as US-CERT, cited findings from security researcher Stefan Viehbock, who uncovered the security hole in the so-called Wi-Fi Protected Set-up, or WPS, protocol, which is often bundled into Wi-Fi routers. The WPS protocol is designed to allow unskilled home users to set up secure networks using WPA encryption without much hassle. Users are then able to type in a shortened PIN instead of a long pass-phrase when adding a new device to the secure network.

That method, however, also makes it much easier for hackers to break into a secure Wi-Fi network, US-CERT says. The security threat could affect millions of consumers, since the WPS protocol is enabled on most Wi-Fi routers sold today.

“A few weeks ago I decided to take a look at the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) technology,” Viehbock said in a blog post. “I noticed a few really bad design decisions which enable an efficient brute force attack, thus effectively breaking the security of pretty much all WPS-enabled Wi-Fi routers. As all of the more recent router models come with WPS enabled by default, this affects millions of devices worldwide.”

The basic problem is that the security of the 8-digit PIN falls dramatically with more attempts to key in the password. When an attempt fails, the hacker can figure out if the first four digits of the code are correct. From there it can then narrow down the possibilities on the remaining digits until the code is cracked. Viehbock said a hacker can get into a secure Wi-Fi hotspot in about two-hours using this method to exploit a vulnerability.

Here’s how US-CERT describes the flaw:

When the PIN authentication fails the access point will send an EAP-NACK message back to the client. The EAP-NACK messages are sent in a way that an attacker is able to determine if the first half of the PIN is correct. Also, the last digit of the PIN is known because it is a checksum for the PIN. This design greatly reduces the number of attempts needed to brute force the PIN. The number of attempts goes from 108 to 104 + 103 which is 11,000 attempts in total.

It has been reported that some wireless routers do not implement any kind of lock out policy for brute force attempts. This greatly reduces the time required to perform a successful brute force attack. It has also been reported that some wireless routers resulted in a denial-of-service condition because of the brute force attempt and required a reboot.

US-CERT said in its warning that there is no known fix to the security problem. Instead, the group recommends that users disable the WPS function on their routers. The warning lists several wireless router vendors as selling devices that are affected by the security hole: Buffalo, D-Link, Cisco Linksys, Netgear, Technicolor, TP-Link, and ZyXEL.

US-CERT indicated in its warning that it notified router vendors that are affected by the security issue in early December, but so far the vendors have not offered a response nor have any of them issued statements.

CNET also contacted the vendors listed by US-CERT, but has not yet received a response from any of them.

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Connecting to public Wi-Fi hot spots can be a challenge, but the Wi-Fi Alliance is hoping to ease some of the pain.

Responsible for certifying Wi-Fi products and technology, the Wi-Fi Alliance said yesterday that it’s working on a new certification program that should make it easier to access and use public hot spots. Various members of the alliance, including service providers and device makers, have already formalized the requirements needed to test such a certification program.

Once in place, the new hot spot program would offer several benefits to Wi-Fi users.

Computers, phones, and other connected gadgets would discover and choose the right Wi-Fi networks to access based on user preferences, network speed, and other conditions. Certain devices would be given automatic access to the network by using such products as SIM cards, which can store the necessary log-in credentials and are already used in phones and other cellular gadgets.

The process of configuring a new user account would run smoother by cutting out certain steps and ensuring a more common setup among different vendors. Finally, the program would address security concerns over using unprotected public hot spots by encrypting all data over the network through the WPA2 standard.

The new program would also help ease the strain on overtaxed cellular networks by more seamlessly handing off data from those networks to available Wi-Fi hot spots.

“Ensuring end users can easily access hot spot networks from various providers is a win for subscribers, service providers, and device makers alike,” Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director of the Wi-Fi Alliance, said in a statement. “We envision an automated, cellular-like experience for Wi-Fi users around the world in security-protected service provider hot spots.”

Following a testing period this year, the Wi-Fi Alliance is hoping to certify the new program by the first half of 2012.

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The Motorola Xoom
The Motorola Xoom
Motorola Mobility

The Wi-Fi-only versions of Motorola’s Xoom and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets could reach consumers very soon, at least according to a couple of product flyers discovered by the folks at DroidLife.

Displaying what appears to be an upcoming flyer for Staples, DroidLife has zeroed in on a launch date of March 27 and a price tag of $599 for the Wi-Fi-only Xoom. Though the price seems accurate based on information from Motorola, the new date contradicts earlier information sent to DroidLife indicating an April 3 debut for the Wi-Fi-only Xoom.

Samsung Galaxy TabSamsung Galaxy Tab
Samsung Galaxy Tab
Samsung

Motorola Mobility’s CEO Sanjay Jha recently revealed that the Wi-Fi-only version Xoom would sell for around $600. Staples’ price for the Wi-Fi Xoom is a bit higher than the $539 that Sam’s Club reportedly will charge. But if accurate, the difference makes sense since Sam’s Club discounts its prices for members. The Wi-Fi Xoom is slated to launch in Europe starting in the second quarter.

We’ve reached out to Motorola and Staples for comment or further details.

Meanwhile, another supposed product flyer uncovered by DroidLife says the Wi-Fi-only Galaxy Tab will start shipping by April 4 and sell for $399. Launched last November, the 3G version of the 7-inch tablet currently sells from a variety of carriers for a variety of prices, with T-Mobile offering the Tab at $249 with a two-year contract.

A Samsung spokeswoman told CNET that the company has not announced pricing or availability for the Wi-Fi-only version of the Tab.

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Could the Wi-Fi Xoom soon land in Sam's Club stores?
Could the Wi-Fi Xoom soon land in Sam’s Club stores?
Motorola

Consumers eager to pick up a version of Motorola’s new Xoom tablet without the pricey data plan and two-year contract could get their wish courtesy of Sam’s Club.

A series of photos and news reportedly coming from the retail chain’s annual “Year Beginning” meeting this week point to the upcoming Wi-Fi-only Xoom popping up in its stores at a price tag of $539, according to DroidLife.

The photos offered up by DroidLife show a display filled with Xoom product vouchers and a sales sign above sporting the $539 price.

But zooming in on the sign does reveal a couple of amusing gaffes. Unless Google is backtracking on version numbers and launching a special edition of Android for homeboys, the reference to “Android 2.0 Homeycomb” is a glitch, perhaps a typo created by a bleary-eyed Sam’s Club worker. (The Google operating system is Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb.)

If the reports are true, no specific Sam’s Club launch date seems to have been revealed. But the Wi-Fi-only Xoom is set to debut in Europe starting in the second quarter.

The price itself follows Motorola’s recent announcement that the Wi-Fi-only Xoom would sell for around $600 in the retail market. The 3G Xoom made its debut last week, selling from Verizon for $799.99 without a contract and $599.99 with a two-year commitment.

We’ve contacted both Motorola and Sam’s Club parent Wal-Mart for comment.

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Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization tomorrow plans to unveil a breakthrough in wireless technology that will allow multiple users to upload content at the same time while maintaining a data transfer rate of 12 megabits per second (Mbps), all over their old analog TV aerial.

The technology, named Ngara, allows up to six users to occupy the equivalent spectrum space of one television channel (7 megahertz) and has a spectral efficiency of 20 bits per second per hertz. Ngara can handle up to three times that of similar technology and maintains a data rate more than 10 times the industry minimum standard, CSIRO ICT center director Ian Opperman revealed.

“Someone who doesn’t live near the fiber network [the Australian government’s planned National Broadband Network] could get to it using our new wireless system,” Oppermann said in a statement. “They’d be able to upload a clip to YouTube in real time and their data rate wouldn’t change even if five of their neighbors also started uploading videos.”

Read more of “CSIRO introduces Wi-Fi to your TV antenna” at ZDNet Australia.

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The Wi-Fi Alliance and HomePlug Powerline Alliance have joined forces to promote the adoption of powerline and Wi-Fi networking technologies in smart-grid applications, which could mean more streamlined connectivity for consumers.

The Wi-Fi Alliance tests and certifies Wi-Fi products, including Wi-Fi Direct, to ensure their interoperability, and the HomePlug Powerline Alliance does the same thing for powerline devices.

The agreement, announced today, enables cooperative efforts for the joint technical review of Wi-Fi Alliance’s and HomePlug’s specifications and standards that facilitate interoperability of smart-grid applications. Both parties will also promote the adoption of wireless and powerline technologies.

The collaboration is a rather natural next step, as both groups have been participating members in the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, a forum for the ongoing development for the smart grid. The Smart Energy 2 Applications Profile (SEP 2.0) was selected last year by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Institute of Standards and Technology as an initial interoperable standard for smart energy management with home area network devices.

The Wi-Fi Alliance and the HomePlug Powerline Alliance are now collaborating to enable SEP 2.0 applications to operate across a diverse mix of wireless and wired networks. The liaison between the two groups is effective immediately.

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Wi-Fi Direct helps making connections between Wi-Fi-enabled devices much more flexible.
Wi-Fi Direct helps making connections between Wi-Fi-enabled devices much more flexible.
Wi-Fi Alliance

First demonstrated at CES 2010, Wi-Fi Direct has taken another step to become part of the Wi-Fi usage spectrum.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, the group that tests and certifies Wi-Fi products to make sure they interoperate, announced today that it has begun certifying products capable of making Wi-Fi-based device-to-device connections and designating them Wi-Fi Certified Wi-Fi Direct.

Traditionally, Wi-Fi clients need to connect to a central place, called an access point, before they can connect to one another in their “infrastructure” mode. Other than that, they can also connect in pairs via a mode called “ad-hoc,” which is limited both in range and throughput speed.

Wi-Fi Direct, on the other hand, allows Wi-Fi devices to connect to one another without an access point at the same speed and range of the infrastructure mode. They can also establish a connection much faster via Wi-Fi Protected Setup, a method that enables connecting devices by pressing a button. In other words, Wi-Fi Direct allows Wi-Fi products to connect much like Bluetooth devices but at a much faster speed and a much longer range.

With this flexibility, Wi-Fi Direct devices fill an important hole in daily usage: directly connecting devices for applications such as content sharing, synching, printing, and gaming anywhere, without users having to carry along an access point.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, another advantage of Wi-Fi Certified Wi-Fi Direct devices is the fact that they can work with traditional Wi-Fi Certified devices, as they act as a mini access point, to which traditional Wi-Fi products can connect.

The Wi-Fi Alliance say that it formed the test suite for the certification program by using the following products, which are also the first that are designated Wi-Fi Certified Wi-Fi Direct:

  • Atheros XSPAN dual-band 802.11n PCIe mini card (AR928x)
  • Broadcom BCM43224 dual-band 802.11n 2×2 MIMO PCIe half mini card
  • Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200
  • Ralink MIMObility 802.11n 2×2 PCIe half mini card
  • Realtek RTL8192CE-VA4 HM92C00 PCIe mini card

The group used the Cisco 2106 Wireless LAN Controller and Cisco Aironet 1240 Series Access Points for the  certification test suite.

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SAN FRANCISCO – A recent leak of training documents and screenshots created a swirl of rumors that T-Mobile would make Wi-Fi calling available on its Android phones, and now we have official confirmation from the carrier itself.

On the opening day of CTIA Fall 2010, T-Mobile announced that it will offer its Wi-Fi Calling service on a selection of Android smartphones, including the upcoming T-Mobile MyTouch and Motorola Defy, which will allow you to make calls and send text messages over a Wi-Fi network.

Powered by Kineto’s Smart Wi-Fi application, the service is ready to use out of the box and also features a tutorial to help first-time users. It’s important to note, however, that Wi-Fi calling will only be available on a select number of T-Mobile’s Android phones and not all.

T-Mobile offers Wi-Fi calling on a number of its other smartphones as well, including the RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700, BlackBerry Curve 8520, BlackBerry Curve 3G, and Nokia E73 Mode.

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A small Canadian wireless company is threatening to take a huge chunk of the technology industry to court.

Ottawa-based Wi-LAN, which patents wireless products, is suing around 18 of the tech industry’s largest players over what it claims are patent violations of Bluetooth technology. More specifically, Wi-LAN is alleging that these companies–which include Acer, Apple, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Motorola, Sony, and Toshiba–have all infringed on one of its U.S. patents for selling PCs and mobile phones equipped with Bluetooth.

patent image

Announced Thursday, the suit claims a violation of Wi-LAN’s U.S. Patent No. 5,515,369. Issued in 1996, the patent covers a “method for frequency sharing and frequency punchout in frequency hopping communications network.”

In plain English, that means the patent is for a technology by which wireless systems such as Bluetooth avoid interfering with other wireless systems such as Wi-Fi, which operate in an unlicensed frequency, according to Tyler Burns, Wi-LAN’s director of investor relations and communications.

The filing shows also that the patent was issued to Metricom, once famous for launching one of the first wireless Internet services, known as Ricochet, before going bankrupt almost 10 years ago. But when asked about the connection between Metricom and Wi-LAN, Burns declined to comment.

This is far from Wi-LAN’s first such legal gambit. The company has a long history of taking other technology companies to court over patent violations.

In 2002, Wi-LAN sued Redline Communications over the use of a wireless networking technology that the company claimed violated one of its patents. Shortly after that case was settled out of court in 2004, the company raised its game by suing networking giant Cisco Systems over a similar allegation.

In 2007, Wi-LAN filed another suit against 22 different companies, many of them also mentioned in the latest lawsuit. The 2007 case claimed that these companies had violated key Wi-LAN patents for Wi-FI and DSL technology in laptops and routers. Another case launched in June 2008 targeted wireless handset manufacturers. Both cases are set to go to trial in January 2011, according to Tyler.

Wi-LAN touts a portfolio of more than 800 patented devices, some of them designed and built internally and others licensed from outside companies.

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Wi

LAS VEGAS – In the next few years it will be difficult to buy a new smartphone that does not have built-in Wi-Fi for speedy Net access, according to a report that ABI Research and the Wi-Fi Alliance published Tuesday.

Today, about half the smartphones sold have Wi-Fi. By 2014, the forecast goes, about 90 percent of smartphones will offer access to Wi-Fi.

Apple iPhone
The Apple iPhone helped show why it’s good for a cell phone to have Wi-Fi.
Apple

The big driver for Wi-Fi is bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications, such as graphically intense games and streaming video. The Apple iPhone was among the first devices to show the true benefit of having Wi-Fi. AT&T, the exclusive carrier offering the iPhone in the U.S., has said that iPhone subscribers consume more data than any other people using its wireless service, even other smartphone customers.

And because of these heavy traffic loads on its overburdened 3G network, AT&T is encouraging all its iPhone subscribers to access its more than 20,000 Wi-Fi hot spots for free. The hope is that the company can offload some of the traffic onto the Wi-Fi network by encouraging subscribers to use Wi-Fi for data-intensive activities when they’re in range of a hot spot.

“In the age of data-centric multimedia phones, carriers have embraced Wi-Fi technology as a way to offload traffic from licensed spectrum and improve the consumer experience,” Michael Morgan, industry analyst for ABI Research, said in a statement. “We are seeing handset users starting to demand Wi-Fi because of its higher data rate and indoor reception benefits.”

Even as carriers roll out 4G wireless networks, Wi-Fi will still have a place because it can offer fast Internet access at a relatively low cost for many devices.

While most cell phones today use Wi-Fi technology based on older standards, the newer specification called 802.11n is gaining traction. And by 2012 ABI says it will become the predominant Wi-Fi technology used in mobile handsets. Today 10 smartphones already have 802.11n certification, including four phones by LG Electronics and six phones from Samsung.

The benefit of using 802.11n is that it offers up to five times the download speed of 802.11g. The newer 802.11n also doubles the range of a Wi-Fi hot spot from about 100 meters to about 200 meters.

It also has a few other features built into the specification that will improve the experience for mobile users. For example, since data transmissions are more efficient with 802.11n, battery life lasts longer than with other forms of 802.11 technology. The specification also prioritizes network resources for voice and video applications to improve the performance, which means voice-over-IP calls and streaming video should run more smoothly on devices connected a via an 802.11n hot spot.

And because 802.11n offers higher capacity, it allows more users to connect to a single hot spot at the same time than older forms of Wi-Fi.

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Wi

Good old Wi-Fi could be the fix to an impending explosion of data on wireless networks.

Nearly three years after Apple introduced the game-changing iPhone, wireless operators around the globe are feeling the effects of the wireless data tsunami that is well under way. Even networks that don’t support the iPhone are feeling the pinch as a generation of new wireless devices offering bandwidth-hungry Web applications are hitting networks.

The result, as many iPhone users in New York City and San Francisco will tell you, is a network that drops calls and offers wireless Net surfing at the speed of a turtle.

Savvy smartphone subscribers with Wi-Fi-enabled devices have already been seeking out Wi-Fi hotspots for their Internet surfing, music-streaming, and video watching. But as more devices, such as the Apple iPad come online and the forecast for wireless data shoots through the roof, wireless operators are looking at Wi-Fi as a way to offload some data traffic from their overburdened 3G networks. And as wireless data is expected to continue to grow rapidly over the next several years, they’re looking at Wi-Fi as a part of their long term wireless strategies as well, even as they build out 4G wireless networks.

“The thirst for bandwidth that new devices and applications on the network create far exceeds what 3G or 4G technology can offer,” said Jeff Thompson, CEO of TowerStream, a company that provides fixed wireless access using WiMax. “And you can’t put the genie back in the bottle.”

Data tsunami

Mobile data traffic is growing unabated, largely due to an onslaught of new devices that provide access to a bevy of Web-based applications. Internet infrastructure equipment maker Cisco Systems predicts that by 2014 there will be more than 5 billion personal devices connecting to mobile networks, as well as billions of machine-to-machine devices also connecting to networks.

Wireless data traffic throughout the world has increased by 160 percent over the past year to 90 petabytes per month, or the equivalent of 23 million DVDs, Cisco said in a recent report. And by 2014, that figure is expected to increase 39-fold to about 3.6 exabytes per month (or 3.6 billion gigabytes).

Already some networks are crumbling under the stress. AT&T, the exclusive carrier in the U.S. for the iPhone, reported recently it has seen wireless packet data on its network increase more than 18 times in the last two and a half years. The extra traffic, particularly in densely populated regions, has caused problems for consumers in the way of dropped calls and slow Net access.

AT&T’s chief executive of operations, John Stankey, said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that during certain periods in some sections of Manhattan nearly 70 percent of the phones active on AT&T’s network are data-intensive devices.

AT&T’s problems are a harbinger of what’s to come for other operators that are just now getting data-intensive smartphones. AT&T has already said it will boost capital spending on its network in 2010 by $2 billion, bringing the total to between $18 billion to $19 billion. The company didn’t break out how it would spend the money, but it mentioned plans to add cell sites, increase backhaul capacity, and upgrade its network to the next generation of HSPA. It will eventually upgrade to 4G wireless using LTE technology.

Wi-Fi as the solution

Even with new 4G networks coming online and more backhaul capacity in the network to help open up the lanes of traffic, there will be so much demand that wireless operators are going to need to use every solution they can to address the problem. And this is why AT&T plans to continue investing in its Wi-Fi hotspot network. Today, the company has 20,000 hotspots around the U.S. in retail locations like Starbucks coffee shops, hotels, and airports.

“Wi-Fi is a very important technology for us,” said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for AT&T. “And it will be considered as a factor in our network plans in the future.”

AT&T subscribers are already using Wi-Fi to offload some 3G traffic. A recent AT&T survey indicates that in the past month 43 percent of smartphone users said they had connected to an AT&T hotspot at least once, Siegel said. In 2009, AT&T consumers connected to an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot four times more often than they did in 2008.

Momentum is growing. In the fourth quarter of 2009, there were more than 35 million connections to the Net via an AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot. This is up by 10 million over the fourth quarter of 2008, Siegel said. He also pointed out that the majority of these Wi-Fi connections are being made by smartphones, such as the iPhone, rather than laptops. In fact, 73 percent of Wi-Fi connections in AT&T hotspots came from “integrated devices” in the fourth quarter compared with 61 percent for all of 2009.

One of the biggest benefits of Wi-Fi is the fact that it’s already in most devices. Laptops come with Wi-Fi pre-installed, and now most new smartphones also come with Wi-Fi built in.

Advances in Wi-Fi technology over the past couple of years have also made it more useful for mobile operators. The latest version of the technology–802.11n–can transmit over longer distances at faster speeds. Multiple radio technology also helps Wi-Fi signals move around corners and better penetrate walls for more coverage.

For example, at a distance of about 500 meters, 802.11n Wi-Fi device can transmit signals at 15.5 Mbps. This is compared with about 5.2 Mbps using the older 802.11g Wi-Fi standard. Compare this with average speeds of 3G wireless, which is about 400 Kbps to 700 Kbps and it’s easy to see why consumers would choose to use Wi-Fi when given the opportunity. Wi-Fi is also faster than WiMax, a 4G wireless technology that offers average downloads around 1 to 2 Mbps.

“The newer 802.11n technology changed the game for Wi-Fi,” said Selino Lo, CEO of a Wi-Fi networking company called Ruckus Wireless. “It offers better range and coverage. And it offers the ability to service more simultaneous customers, which allows wireless carriers to use it to build much more scalable networks.”

Towerstream, a company that specializes in providing wireless backhaul solutions to wireless carriers and large companies, is exploring using its rooftop rights in densely urban areas to create Wi-Fi hotzones. Since the technology today creates larger Wi-Fi hotspots, Thompson thinks operators could extend their Wi-Fi hotspots beyond a single cafe, covering entire downtown areas.

“You can build an 802.11n hotspot that isn’t much smaller than some of these cell sites in densely populated urban areas,” Thompson said. “It’s still a little early for us, but we’re talking to carriers to see if there is an opportunity for us to leverage our rooftop rights to help them build out these networks. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to install than setting up a new cell tower and it offers a lot more capacity.”

AT&T has been the most vocal U.S. carrier to talk about its use of Wi-Fi to help alleviate capacity issues. In fact, during the company’s earnings call, when asked how AT&T expected to handle additional traffic from Apple’s iPad, an executive said he expected many consumers to use Wi-Fi.

T-Mobile has also been a big proponent of Wi-Fi. In 2006, the company began offering a service for $10 extra a month that allowed people to make unlimited phone calls using Wi-Fi. The company has since discontinued the service when it introduced an unlimited calling plan for all its cell phones, but it still allows subscribers to seamlessly switch to Wi-Fi for voice and data calls on certain phones.

All of its Wi-Fi-enabled handsets are able to switch to Wi-Fi for data. But company executives say T-Mobile doesn’t view Wi-Fi as a technology for offloading data traffic, so much as it sees it as a way to extend the T-Mobile network.

Sprint Nextel is also using Wi-Fi to offload some data traffic and to extend the reach of its network. At CES in January, the company announced the Overdrive, a 3G/4G wireless router that creates a mini-hotspot for up to five Wi-Fi devices.

Verizon Wireless seems to be the least enthusiastic U.S. operator over Wi-Fi. For the past few years, Verizon has downplayed the importance of Wi-Fi. And up until recently, it routinely disabled Wi-Fi on many handsests. The company experimented with deploying its own Wi-Fi hot spots several years ago in New York City, turning old phone booths into wireless hot spots. The service never took off, and Verizon dismantled the hotspots. The company was also a vocal critic of many municipal Wi-Fi projects, including the one in Philadelphia.

But in 2009, the company had a change of heart toward Wi-Fi. It announced that some of its Verizon Fios subscribers would get free access to its own Verizon Wi-Fi hot spots as well as to hotspots offered by Boingo as part of their broadband service.

While Verizon sees the value in extending Wi-Fi to broadband customers, the company still doesn’t appear to be embracing it for offloading data traffic. A spokesman for the company was not available to talk about the company’s Wi-Fi strategy.

That said, Verizon has been very public about its aggressive plans for deploying its 4G network using LTE. The company will be launching some markets in 2010 with more to follow in 2011.

Even though operators may not be talking publicly about their plans for Wi-Fi, Steven Glapa, director of business development at Ruckus, said they are talking to him about deploying solutions.

“Operators are definitely interested in Wi-Fi for offloading data traffi,” he said. “The normal process for a tier 1 carrier may take 12 to 24 months to evaluate, test, and deploy new radio technology, but many of the people I am talking to are telling me they need to make decisions much sooner than that.”

He said carriers around the world who have had the iPhone the longest are the most eager to expand their Wi-Fi networks for offloading traffic. Glapa said consumers may start seeing more hotspots and hotzones for offloading data traffic as soon as this year. But he expects many carriers to get these Wi-Fi offload networks up and running in 2011 and 2012.

“When you start seeing CEOs talking about capacity issues, that’s when you can expect to see some changes pretty quickly,” he said. “So I am sure wireless subscribers will start seeing something by the end of the year.”

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