Advanced Wireless LAN Technologies: IEEE 802.11AC and Beyond

In 2013, global mobile data traffic grew 81% and it is projected to increase 11-fold between 2013 and 2018. Further, it is predicted that by 2018, over two-thirds of the world's mobile traffic will be video and more than half of all traffic from wireless connected devices will be offloaded to Wi-Fi networks and femto-cells [1]. Consequently, wireless LANs need major upgrades to improve both throughput and efficiency. IEEE 802.11ac is an amendment to the 802.11 standard that was just ratified by IEEE 802.11. Promising up to gigabit data rates, many Wi-Fi products are being built based on this specification. In addition to technologies that improve throughput, IEEE 802.11ax is investigating and evaluating advanced wireless technologies that enable more efficient utilization of the existing spectrum.