A secretive Israeli startup staffed by former Intel executives, and backed by Benchmark and Sequoia Capital, is planning a super high-speed successor to the 802.11n WiFi standard that’s currently being rolled out.
The current fastest standards, 802.11a/g, have top transfer speeds of around 54 megabytes per second (in perfect conditions). The new 802.11n theoretically operates at more than 200 Mbps. But compared to Wilocity’s planned very high throughput (VHT) standard, that’s snail pace: The pilot project aims to operate at up to 5 gigabytes per second, effectively 25 times faster than 802.11n.
That far exceeds current transfer speeds over the internet. Instead, the newer WiFi standards would be more useful for home networking functions like streaming content between a computer, television and mobile device, or synchronizing a laptop with a desktop computer.
The Intel execs who are working on the company include Mike Grodinzky, a former wireless product manager, and Gal Basson, a wireless researcher. The CEO appears to be former Intel staffer Tal Tamir. They declined to comment, saying that more of their plans would be revealed next year. Basson is also a member of a wireless standards committee, the VHT study group, that includes people from Intel, Motorola, and Nokia, and filed a preliminary patent for WiloCity that can be seen here.
Whether or not it sounds credible that the contents of a standard 120GB hard-drive in use today could be transferred in 24 seconds, even if only in laboratory conditions, one thing is nearly certain: Wireless devices that fast, or faster, will be available within three to ten years.
The question is which technologies will be behind them. Devices using another spectrum, 60 gigahertz, could potentially be operate at speeds several times faster than even Wilocity’s planned WiFi standard, but tend to lose signal strength from even a few feet away (see our article on Phiar, which promises 60GHz chips in two years). Meanwhile, companies like Broadcom and Toshiba are probably working on their own high-speed WiFi technology.
However, even if we had WiFi capable of 5 Gbps today, there wouldn’t be many consumer uses for it yet. Ina Sebastian, a wireless analyst with Jupiter Research, told us that 802.11n WiFi is “pretty sufficient” to stream movies from a computer to a television set-top box, the most data-heavy home networking scenario to gain any popularity thus far.
We’re sure someone will think up a use. It probably won’t be the tech guys at Wilocity, though. A slide from a company presentation with suggested applications reads, simply, “Holograms ????”.
We’ll keep an eye on the company for more.
9 Comments
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RK said:
Chris,
Can Wilocity Demo a 5 Gbps in NON LINE OF SIGHT at say 20 METERS, Please ask them? I think there 5 G # are lab condition in Line of Sight.
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Chris Morrison said:
Hi RK — Thanks for the question. I wish I could have the company answer, but as I stated, they’re not talking.
As you’re suggesting, WiFi slows down outside of the lab. 802.11a/g in the wild averages 22-24 Mbps versus its lab speed of 54 Mbps. For 802.11 it’s about 100-120 Mbps on average, with speeds north of 200 Mbps having been reached in good conditions. However, 11n also seems to travels further than the earlier a/b/g standards.
It seems near certain that 5 Gbps means nearby and line of sight, as you say. If it’s consistent with past standards, that would mean 2.5-3 Gbps or so in your average house. That’s why I said that a 24 second transfer time for 120 seconds would probably only take place “in laboratory conditions,” in the article.
As a reminder, this seems to be a technology still in development, and the post is somewhat speculative. If anyone had those transfer speeds nailed down in a product at consumer price levels, it’d be on, or headed toward, the market.
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RK said:
Chris,
60G is not a easy wave to manage, it is called Millimeter Wave for a reason. Propagation Loss impacts the range, Sibeam has been working on this for 3~4 years now as company and at UC Berkeley before. They are focused on WPAN/W-HDMI market. Also Data transfer rate is totally Proportional to loss of signal as well. I think 5Gbps is few meters LOS as well.
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Chris Morrison said:
RK — The problems with 60GHz are pretty well known, and will require some creativity in device design even for your standard DVD / TV setup to run wirelessly on that spectrum.
Sounds like you’ve got more expertise than I, when it comes to WiFi. I wish I could tell you more about the range of what we think Wilocity is working on, but that would be taking speculation too far; haven’t heard anything about it. It seems the 802.11n folks figured out LOS pretty well, but that may not be indicative of anything, when it comes to much higher speeds.
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RC said:
Chris,
Don’t confuse link speed with transmit speed. The data rate for a/g is 50% of the link speed at best. This overhead is cut down to 75% of link speed for n, or 25% overhead. Check this FAQ for a good description:
http://www.wirevolution.com/2007/09/07/how-does-80211n-get-to-600mbps/
As for the 60GHz stuff here is an interesting story on a phased array transmitting chip at these frequencies being developed by Intel/UCSD/DARPA.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071030135705.htm
World’s Most Complex Silicon Phased-array Chip Developed
ScienceDaily (Nov. 4, 2007) — UC San Diego electrical engineers have developed the world’s most complex “phased array” — or radio frequency integrated circuit. This DARPA-funded advance is expected to find its way into U.S. defense satellite communication and radar systems. In addition, the innovations in this chip design will likely spill over into commercial applications, such as automotive satellite systems for direct broadcast TV, and new methods for high speed wireless data transfer. -
Frank Ariel said:
Chris,
I don’t the rest of those guys, but I know Basson personally. I think that Intel lost a very sharp mind and a great manager when Basson left, and they knew it too. Basson will not put his name on a product that doesn’t work. My 2 cents.
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Frank Ariel said:
Chris, you dropped a word from my comment. I said “I don’t know the rest of those guys”. You dropped “don’t”. Thanks. Can you also replace my name with Ariel Law Group? thanks.
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Xinoa Streams said:
This is very interesting, I wonder what they are going to use this technology for? I believe it is a tough industry to get ahead in, since many larger companies are also creating their own, and using it in their products.
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MW & mmW said:
The fact that both, SiBEAM and WiLOCITY are keeping secret their activity may be the sign of deeper similarities: in technology as well as in difficulties. In fact: the patent activity by Mr. Basson in the recent years basically concerns digital beam forming, which could be suitable for in-sight-of-line or MIMO: the same technological area SiBEAM is dealing with. Therefore they may compete just on algorithms. But I may be wrong.
