IEEE has established the 802.11 Extremely High Throughput Study Group to look at new features for bands between 1 and 7.125 GHz, as well as a separate group to study real-time applications.
The Extremely High Throughput Study Group just held its first meeting in Hawaii last month, where it started identifying requirements for a possible amendment to IEEE 802.11 that would increase peak throughput to support applications such as video over wireless local area networks (WLANs), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).
The group is seeking stakeholders throughout the IEEE 802.11 ecosystem to share their experiences with the standard and needs for features such as more spatial streams, higher bandwidth, multi-access point techniques and multiband switching, according to Michael Montemurro, chair of the IEEE 802.11 Extremely High Throughput Study Group, in a press release.
“We envision a rapidly paced effort over the next six to nine months, which we hope will bring into clear definition the most important requirements to be addressed in accelerated development of a possible future amendment to the IEEE 802.11 base standard,” he said.
Separately, the IEEE 802.11 Real Time Applications Topic Interest Group is quantifying performance lags and stability issues that have plagued applications like mobile and multiplayer games, robotics and industrial automation. The group said it is working to document usage models and requirements metrics.
Immersive gaming is very latency sensitive and requires a quick turnaround on packets for users to enjoy a high-quality experience, explained Allan Jones, chair of the IEEE 802.11 Real Time Applications Topic Interest Group, in the release.
Jitter, packet loss and what’s going on throughout the network can have a large impact on real-time applications, which may have only moderate bandwidth requirements but have very low tolerance for latency, he added. “What we’re trying to do in our group is define more specifically what these requirements are for this particular category of applications, toward the goal of informing ongoing IEEE 802.11 innovation,” he said.
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The groups’ efforts come as the Wi-Fi Alliance introduces a new lingo for designating things that are based on 802.11 technology. The Wi-Fi 6 moniker is being used to refer to anything that's based on the latest generation, 802.11ax. Wi-Fi 5 is used to identify devices that support 802.11ac technology, while Wi-Fi 4 identifies devices that support 802.11n technology.
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