from the like-a-laser-with-a-very-wide-beam dept.
Qualcomm's new Wi-Fi chips are meant to rival 5G speeds
Qualcomm is launching a family of chips that can add incredibly high-speed Wi-Fi — at speeds up to 10 gigabits per second — to phones, laptops, routers, and so on. It's the start of a new generation of this super-fast Wi-Fi standard, but it isn't going to be used to speed up your typical web browsing. And whether it catches on at all remains an open question.
[...] WiGig relies on a connection standard known as 802.11ad, which can hit speeds up to 5 gigabits per second over close to 10 meters, according to Dino Bekis, the head of Qualcomm's mobile and compute connectivity group. Qualcomm's latest chips move WiGig up to a new generation of that wireless standard, called 802.11ay, which Bekis says can reach speeds twice as fast, and can do so up to 100 meter away. The Wi-Fi Alliance says the new standard "increases the peak data rates of WiGig and improves spectrum efficiency and reduces latency."
So why not just use this as normal Wi-Fi, given how fast it gets? Because that range is only line-of-sight — when there's literally nothing in the way between the transmitter and the receiver. This high-speed Wi-Fi is based on millimeter wave radio waves in the 60GHz range. That means it's really fast, but also that it has a very difficult time penetrating obstacles, like a wall. That's a problem if you want a general purpose wireless technology.
[...] It's not clear if this will really catch on, though. While there's definitely room for adoption from VR gamers, the earlier version of this tech has found minimal pickup in its couple years on the market. Asus recently made interesting use of it with the ROG Phone, which is designed for gamers. And Qualcomm says it's working with Facebook to use this tech for its Terragraph project, which wirelessly delivers home internet connections.
With 5:1 "visually lossless" compression, 10 Gbps could be enough for 5K @ 120 Hz.
Also at Engadget.
Related: AMD Acquires Nitero, a Maker of Wireless Chips for VR Headsets
Intel to Cease Shipments of Current WiGig Products, Focus on WiGig for VR
VirtualLink Consortium Announces USB Type-C Specification for VR Headsets
Wi-Fi Alliance Rebrands Wi-Fi Standards
Related Stories
AMD has announced the acquisition of Nitero, a company that made a "phased-array beamforming millimeter wave" wireless chip for VR/AR headsets:
Nitero has designed a phased-array beamforming millimeter wave chip to address the challenges facing wireless VR and AR. Using high-performance 60 GHz wireless, this technology has the potential to enable multi-gigabit transmit performance with low latency in room-scale VR environments. The beamforming characteristics solve the requirement for line-of-sight associated with traditional high-frequency mm-wave systems, potentially eliminating wired VR headsets and enabling users to become more easily immersed in virtual and augmented worlds.
I'll say no thanks to a headset with cables connected to it. Those are for the early adopters.
Intel is discontinuing its current 802.11ad "WiGig" products by the end of the year, but will continue to work on using WiGig for untethered wireless VR headsets:
Intel is formally initiating the EOL program for the Wireless Gigabit 11000 and Tri Band Wireless-AC 18260 controllers, the Wireless Gigabit Antenna-M M100041 antenna and the Wireless Gigabit Sink W13100 sink today (September 8). Intel is asking its partners to place their final orders on its WiGig-supporting network cards, antenna and sink by September 29, 2017. The final shipments will be made by December 29, 2017.
[...] The WiGig short range communication standard enables compatible devices to communicate at up to 7–8 Gb/s data rates and with minimal latencies, using the 60 GHz spectrum at distances of up to ten meters. WiGig cannot replace Wi-Fi or Bluetooth because 60 GHz signals cannot penetrate walls, but it can enable devices like wireless docking stations, wireless AR/VR head-mounted displays, wireless storage devices, wireless displays, and others that are in direct line of sight. Intel's current-generation WiGig products were designed primarily for notebook dockings. A number of PC makers released laptops featuring Intel's Tri Band Wireless-AC 18260/17265 controllers and supporting docks featuring Intel's Wireless Gigabit Sink W13100. These WiGig-enabled solutions were primarily targeted at their B2B customers in business and enterprise segments.
However, WiGig has never seen any adoption in mass-market laptops, displays and other devices. The vast majority of advanced notebooks these days come with either USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C or Thunderbolt 3 ports supporting up to 10 or 40 Gb/s data transfer rates (respectively), DisplayPort 1.2 and other protocols, thus providing far better performance and functionality than WiGig, albeit at the cost of a tethered connection.
[...] What is interesting is that Intel is not disclosing whether they have plans to introduce any new WiGig products for laptops or tablets, byt they say they will be continuing their 802.11ad work with a focus on VR headsets. Earlier this year HTC and Intel already demonstrated a wireless HTC Vive operating using the WiGig technology, but didn't reveal whether it used its off-the-shelf WiGig silicon or custom yet-unannounced solutions for the project.
VR rivals come together to develop a single-cable spec for VR headsets
Future generations of virtual reality headsets for PCs could use a single USB Type-C cable for both power and data. That's thanks to a new standardized spec from the VirtualLink Consortium, a group made up of GPU vendors AMD and Nvidia and virtual reality rivals Valve, Microsoft, and Facebook-owned Oculus.
The spec uses the USB Type-C connector's "Alternate Mode" capability to implement different data protocols—such as Thunderbolt 3 data or DisplayPort and HDMI video—over the increasingly common cables, combined with Type-C's support for power delivery. The new headset spec combines four lanes of HBR3 ("high bitrate 3") DisplayPort video (for a total of 32.4 gigabits per second of video data), along with a USB 3.1 generation 2 (10 gigabit per second) data channel for sensors and on-headset cameras, along with 27W of electrical power.
That much video data is sufficient for two 3840×2160 streams at 60 frames per second, or even higher frame rates if Display Stream Compression is also used. Drop the resolution to 2560×1440, and two uncompressed 120 frame per second streams would be possible.
Framerate is too low, and it's not wireless. Lame.
VirtualLink website. Also at The Verge.
Wi-Fi Alliance rebrands 802.11ac as Wi-Fi 5, picks 802.11ax as Wi-Fi 6
The Wi-Fi Alliance today announced a significant rebranding of the "802.11" Wi-Fi standards that have long served as a source of potential confusion for users: Going forward, the current 802.11ac standard will be known as Wi-Fi 5, while its successor 802.11ax will be known as Wi-Fi 6, establishing a generational terminology that — like Bluetooth 3, 4, and 5 — will be easier for customers to remember and understand.
[...] Today's announcement is significant not just because of its impact on currently popular Wi-Fi standards, but also on one that's been on the fringe: 802.11ad. Also known as WiGig, 802.11ad notably depends on an extra, 60GHz millimeter wave wireless antenna to boost speeds of compatible devices in the same room as the router. A handful of routers and devices, including wireless VR adapters, have adopted 802.11ad over the past year or two.
But the announcement makes clear that the Wi-Fi Alliance sees 802.11ax, not 802.11ad, as the next stage of Wi-Fi's evolution. 802.11ax has no need for the extra antenna, instead making more efficient use of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands already used by 802.11ac — err, Wi-Fi 5. Wi-Fi 6 promises up to 11 Gbps speeds across three or more devices, with a single Wi-Fi 6 device achieving up to 5 Gbps.
In a statement to VentureBeat, the Alliance explained how Wi-Fi 6 and WiGig will coexist:
"Wi-Fi 6 and WiGig, based on 802.11ad and eventually 802.11ay, will continue to evolve in parallel and remain strong complements to one another within the Wi-Fi portfolio of technologies. We fully expect some products to integrate Wi-Fi 6 and WiGig, which will remain a distinct brand to indicate products that support 60 GHz Wi-Fi for multi-gigabit, low-latency connectivity."
Also at Ars Technica, The Verge, and Tom's Hardware.
Related: Wi-Fi Alliance Approves 802.11ah "HaLow" Standard for the 900 MHz Band
D-Link Joins Hands With Microsoft to Give 'Super Wi-Fi' a Push
Intel to Cease Shipments of Current WiGig Products, Focus on WiGig for VR
Intel Launches Wi-Fi 6 AX200 Wireless Network Adapter
Intel has quietly launched its first Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless network adapter, codenamed Cyclone Peak. The new WLAN adapter will deliver up to 2.4 Gbps network throughput when used with a compatible access point, but, like Wi-Fi 6 in general, its main advantage is that it will work better than existing adapters in RF-noisy environments where multiple Wi-Fi networks co-exist.
The Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 is a CNVi WLAN card that supports 802.11ax via 2x2 MU-MIMO antennas over the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. And never found too far from a Wi-Fi card, Intel's AX200 also supports Bluetooth 5.0.
[...] Intel's web-site says that the first Cyclone Peak wireless network adapter has been launched, so the device is available to makers of PCs. Depending on the order, the Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 costs Intel's customers from $10 to $17.
One of the commenters linked to this paper about 802.11be, a generation of Extremely High Throughput (EHT) Wi-Fi technology beyond 802.11ax that could offer a maximum throughput of at least 30 Gbps.
Previously: Netgear Introduces its First Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Routers
Related: Wi-Fi Alliance Rebrands Wi-Fi Standards
Qualcomm Announces 802.11ay Wi-Fi Chips that Can Transmit 10 Gbps Within Line-of-Sight
Intel Promises "10nm" Chips by the End of 2019, and More
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @08:47AM
don't trust this push to "visually lossless" - it is marketing bullshit- see how distributors are already rolling back on quality and calling the "perceived quality" to be the same, except that it is noticeably degraded
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @10:12AM (5 children)
Good luck getting line of sight in a Millennial household. You'll have to tie your five roommates to a chair. (And there's only one chair.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 18 2018, @10:17AM (3 children)
Line of sight is useless for anything not carefully placed and in the same room, so pretty much never in any household.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Muad'Dave on Thursday October 18 2018, @01:50PM
Soon there will be 60 GHz light fixtures that you run fiber to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:56PM (1 child)
I don't think that phrase means what you think it means. "Line of Sight" can be many miles in some instances. I have rural fixed WiFi (2.4GHz) with a panel antenna 25' up a tree, with line-of-sight access to a tower on a ridge 2.5miles away. See cavenet.com.
The problem with 60GHz isn't just that it won't go thru walls, but that it won't go thru almost anything, including water vapor. So this is for micro-cells in urban environments only. Surely that band has some practical use. Yeah, radiotherapy for arthritis.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 19 2018, @10:34AM
I know precisely what line of sight means. I've been doing wireless networking professionally since it was a thing. What I was getting at is that homes and apartments tend to have walls, doors, furniture, and people in them, which would limit the utility of anything in the 60GHz band to locations in the same room without furniture or people in the way.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 18 2018, @02:08PM
I'm pretty sure it can also bounce off walls. It just won't be penetrating walls.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by urza9814 on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:45PM
Do you have to smack your router like the Fonz when it starts acting up?
802.11 ayyy!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Grayson on Thursday October 18 2018, @07:40PM (3 children)
This requires literal line-of-sight.
We messed around with some versions of it and it was bad enough that, moving around, walking through the line of sight, moving your hand in gestures, and even putting a piece of paper in the line of sight.
All of these seriously degraded or completely blocked the signal.
It's perfect for something like an AP directly over a cluster of desktops that you need high-speed access in the middle of the room, but don't want to run new wiring. But, in any situation where the line of sight can be broken it completely fails.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday October 18 2018, @10:11PM
It's what's needed for good untethered VR, i.e. a desktop PC communicating to a VR headset within a room. Otherwise, we have to ride the heck out of Moore's law in order to cram the best CPU, GPU, and perhaps more (neuromorphic component?) into a smartphone SoC. With tricks like foveated rendering [theverge.com], Seurat [google.com], etc. it may be possible to achieve great standalone VR. And maybe we will bust out of the death of Moore's law by making vertically stacked transistors. But WiGig is a good option that can allow you to put a multi-kilowatt monster to work in the corner instead of on your head.
While there will be line of sight issues, there is a possiblity that beamforming can be used by 60 GHz devices to bounce off walls:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/07/beamforming-your-data-how-wigig-will-offer-7gbps-speeds/ [arstechnica.com]
Also, it or another wireless standard would need to get above 10 Gbps at some point in order to target very high resolutions and framerates. 32K at 240 Hz, anyone? [soylentnews.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 19 2018, @02:22AM
I sqaw the first d3esigns... was for server rooms. Special "triangular" bays in "round" racks, the center was hollow, with an antenna pointing into the hollow space. This allowed the servers to talk without needing any connections, except power that snaps in when unit is inserted. The outside also had antenna, so they can talk to the next tower. No more fibre or ether cables (mostly).
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Friday October 19 2018, @08:11PM
This'll be great for wireless monitors and projectors and other displays hanging over people or sitting in the same AV cabinet or right nearby. Nothing to get in the way if placed using good judgement.
I might not want to use it for my primary desktop's monitor connection (anyone tuning in can see and all that--unless the encryption is rather good and not worth worrying about)... but for a TV or game console system or something that can hook 5 things up with no wires except for maybe an S-Video_to_NewFangled-Dongle or whatever for this to work? If it isn't horribly expensive, count me in. I already do some weird stuff. Making it clutter free would be an improvement...
I am a guy that has a vacuum tube amp for my gaming computer, so I am willing to be bleeding edge like that sometimes ;)
As long as expectations are in line with what it can actually do, some things that come with limitations turn out to be an actual plus when used properly--even creatively.