The Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig Alliance) announced a cooperation agreement for multi-gigabit wireless networking. The Wi-Fi Alliance and the WiGig Alliance will share technology specifications for the development of a next-generation Wi-Fi Alliance certification program supporting Wi-Fi® operation in the 60 GHz frequency band. This agreement further encourages the development of products supporting 60 GHz technology to expand existing Wi-Fi capabilities.
Device connectivity in the 60 GHz band will complement the current family of Wi-Fi technologies. Targeted primarily for applications that require gigabit speeds, 60 GHz products are expected to be used in a wide range of high-performance devices. A significant portion, if not all, of these devices are expected to also support traditional Wi-Fi networking in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.
"60 GHz device connectivity will be an exciting enhancement to the capabilities of today's Wi-Fi technologies. It will expand the utility of Wi-Fi, used by hundreds of millions of people every day," said Wi-Fi Alliance Chief Executive Officer Edgar Figueroa. "From its inception, the WiGig specification was designed to work on a wide variety of devices, making it a compelling input as we begin to define our certification program for 60 GHz wireless."
"Now that our specification is complete and published, it's time to set our sights on driving a great user experience through interoperability and certification," said Ali Sadri, President and Chairman of the WiGig Alliance. "We are happy to work with the Wi-Fi Alliance to extend multi-gigabit capabilities to the Wi-Fi technology portfolio."
The WiGig Alliance, which shares many member companies in common with the Wi-Fi Alliance, was formed to unify the next generation of multi-gigabit wireless products by encouraging the adoption and widespread use of 60 GHz wireless technology worldwide.
The WiGig specification defines protocols to deliver data transfer rates measured in gigabits rather than megabits and supports a new range of applications and usages. The specification also defines procedures to enable WiGig compliant devices to hand over sessions to operate in the 2.4 or 5 GHz band. It is expected that a new class of tri-band Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ devices will offer multi-gigabit wireless speeds while helping to ensure backward compatibility.
"There is no question that this agreement will enable 60 GHz technology to form an important part of the high-performance future for wireless networking," said Phil Solis, Practice Director for Wireless Connectivity at ABI Research. "By cooperating, the groups have set a course for interoperability and backward compatibility that will accelerate the adoption and usefulness of multi-gigabit wireless networking."
