Apple Products To Support 802.11ac 5G ‘Gigabit WiFi’ In 2012

According to a report published by AppleInsider, Apple is looking to incorporate support for the new 802.11ac Wi-Fi specification into its products this year. Dubbed as “Gigabit WiFi”, the faster wireless technology is expected to be installed in Apple’s 2012 upgrades of AirPort base station, Time Capsule, Apple TV, Macbook and potentially in the next iPhone as well. The 5G “Gigabit WiFi” technology offers speeds 3 times as fast as existing 802.11n wireless networks with speeds of over 1 Gigabit per second.

Citing from the source:

“The new 802.11ac standard achieves much faster wireless networking speeds than the existing 802.11n specification (in use on the latest Mac, AirPort and iOS devices) by using 2 to 4 times the frequency bandwidth (from 80 to 160MHz), more efficient data transfers through sophisticated modulation, and more antennas (up to 8; existing standards support up to 4, while Apple’s Macs currently use up to 3).”

Even though 802.11ac has not yet been finalized as an official standard, many suppliers have already issued chipsets supporting 802.11ac for consumer grade applications including key Apple component maker Broadcom which announced chips supporting the standard earlier this month at CES. The tremendous speed gains possible with Gigabit WiFi will make Apple’s wireless technologies from AirPlay to Time Machine faster and more efficient than ever.