Qualcomm and Facebook team for 60GHz 802.11 ay WiFi

@ 2018/05/23
802.11 ay mmWave, 10 Gbps+ speeds

It is not every day you hear that Facebook and Qualcomm go out out in public announcing a plan to work together to deliver high speed internet connectivity with Facebook Terragraph technology through the development of a multi-node wireless system based on 60GHz technology from Qualcomm. This can result in 10Gbps speeds.

Terragraph, as Facebook calls is it, feels almost like a fiber in the air connection based on the Wi-Fi mash model that has the goal of increasing internet speed in urban areas. This is a physical box that needs to be installed on a pole or a building and has the Qualcomm QCA6438 and QCA6428 family of pre-802.11ay chipsets. Facebook wants you to consume data at the fastest possible speeds and will help form relationships with cities and carriers.
802.11 ay for Terragraph speeds

Don’t let yourself be confused, the 802.11 ay is the protocol that comes after 802.11 ax. Qualcomm is launching ax chipsets for phones and access points/routers this year and they will even support the new WPA3 security protocol. The 802.11 ay is currently in a draft phase but Qualcomm has quite a good idea where things are heading and is ready to work with Facebook to enable 10 Gbps like speeds between these Terragraph boxes.

One way of looking at 802.11 ay is like the 802.11 ad WiGig on steroids, as it uses the best from this protocol at 60GHz as well as Mesh models popularized with the last years releases of 802.11 ac but the final 802.11 ay standard might be a few years in the future. This is why both Facebook and Qualcomm call this a pre-release. One ready, 802.11 ay with MIMO can get you to speeds faster than 140 Gbps and distances larger than 1000 feet (300 meters).

No comments available.