Jul 17, 2019
Is there an upper limit to WiFi speed?
Posted by Philip Raymond in categories: computing, internet
As with many of my recent posts, this was originally a reply to a member of Quora, a Q&A web forum. But, it fits within Lifeboat’s educational mission and our fascination to push the limits of creativity and tech.
Is there a theoretical speed limit to WiFi devices over the next 10 years?
Because of four recent practices,* it is difficult to predict an upper limit for future overall throughput:
- Channel bonding
- Beam steering (MIMO shaping and directing the antenna pattern)
- Mesh Networking (i.e. subdividing a service area into micro-cells). Residential examples: Google WiFi, Netgear Orbi or TP-Link Deco
- Ultra wideband or Ultra-high frequency: In 2017, both Netgear and Asus introduced routers with 802.11ad WiFi (‘WiFi AD’). Although it still not widely adopted, it adds a 60 GHz radio to the existing 2.4 and 5 GHz radios, supporting 7 Gbps network speed).
Note that none of these techniques demands a high output power per channel. They all use ‘tricks’ to achieve higher speeds. But the tricks are scaleable. There really is no upper limit to any of these techniques.