Wi-Fi range set to double

27 January 2016 Telecoms, Datacoms, Wireless, IoT News

A new Wi-Fi standard, due to be finalised later this year, promises to offer longer range and lower power consumption by employing sub-Gigahertz frequencies. The new standard, formally designated IEEE 802.11ah but given the marketing name Wi-Fi HaLow by the Wi-Fi Alliance, is being developed to enable a variety of new power-efficient use cases in the smart home, connected car and digital healthcare, as well as industrial, retail, agriculture and smart city environments.

Wi-Fi HaLow extends Wi-Fi into the 900 MHz band, enabling the low-power connectivity necessary for applications including sensor and wearables. Its range is nearly twice that of today’s Wi-Fi, and it will not only be capable of transmitting signals further, but also providing a more robust connection in challenging environments where the ability to more easily penetrate walls or other barriers is an important consideration. Wi-Fi HaLow will broadly adopt existing Wi-Fi protocols and deliver many of the benefits that consumers have come to expect from Wi-Fi today, including multi-vendor interoperability, strong government-grade security and easy setup.

Many devices that support Wi-Fi HaLow are expected to operate in 2,4 and 5 GHz as well as 900 MHz, allowing devices to connect with Wi-Fi’s ecosystem of more than 6,8 billion installed devices. Like all Wi-Fi devices, HaLow devices will support IP-based connectivity to natively connect to the cloud, which will become increasingly important in reaching the full potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). Dense device deployments will also benefit from the new standard’s ability to connect thousands of devices to a single access point.

For more information visit www.wi-fi.org/wi-fi-halow

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