The Wi-Fi Alliance plans to evaluate WiGig technology for integration into its future 60 GHz specification, while the WiGig Alliance will gain access to Wi-Fi alliance specs so it can align its own technology to those standards, according to an agreement with the two groups.
Last month the WiGig Alliance released a specification for wireless networks to deliver as much as 7 Gbps in the 60 GHz band. WiGig is expected to have enough capacity to deliver high-def video streams and will play in the home-networking market. The alliance is expected to set up a certification system next year and anticipates WiGig-based consumer products to begin reaching the market in 2011.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has also been developing a standard at 60 GHz called IEEE 802.11AD and has indicated that WiGig looks to be complementary to WiFi, especially since Intel, Broadcom and Atheros all have plans to integrate the technology into WiFi chipsets. The addition of the standard would enable users to switch to WiGig for more speed.
The agreement is short of a merger of the two standards. The 60 GHz task group in the Wi-Fi Alliance will study the WiGig specification and decide what parts to bring into its own 60 GHz standard, according to Ali Sadri, chairman and president of the WiGig Alliance in an interview with PCWorld.
For more:
- see this PCWorld article
Related article:
Wireless Gigabit Alliance completes specs for 60 GHz technology