Wireless Access

The attached FAQ covers the basics of 802.11ac.  Please respond to the thread if there are any questions after reading the FAQ.

 

Edited: fixed a typo in Question 7 of the FAQ

 

Updated 5/31/2012: Updated 11ac ratification information.

 

Updated 6/27/2012: Fixed a broken link in the TOC and clarrified software 11ac upgrade questions.

Great link! Thanks a lot :)

All,

 

Just published a blog on the topic, including an interview with our in-house expert on the topic - Peter Thornycroft, aka. pthornycroft - from Aruba's Office of the CTO. Here it is: 

http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Technology-Blog/Introduction-to-802-11ac/ba-p/21922

 

 

 

This fact might be misleading.

 

12. Will 802.11ac be backwards compatible?

Yes. 11a/b/g/n devices will be able to connect to 802.11ac radios.

 

I believe only 11a/n devices will be backwards compatible with 11ac radios.

Most APs will come dual band with an 11n2.4 radio for 11b/g compatibility.

 

What do ya'll think?

You are correct in that the standard for 11ac is 5 ghz only.  But when we talk with some of the radio vendors, it sounds like they will be porting some of the 11ac features to 2.4 as well.  I wouldn't be surprised if 256-QAM and wider channel bandwidths made it to 2.4 ghz.  The details are still a little fuzzy.

 

Even if no 11ac features make it into 2.4 ghz, the new APs would be 5 ghz 11ac and 2.4 11n.  Which means both 2.4 and 5 ghz 11n devices will be able to connect without any problems.  Existing wifi radios will continue to work on the next generation of APs.

I'm confused about the .11n backwards compatibility. Will .11n clients have to connect on 2.4ghz instead of 5ghz? It sounds like .11ac and .11n clients may not co-exist on 5ghz because of the wider channel support.

currently clients coexist on the 5ghz band also when there are dual channel en single channel clients, ac will just increase the number of channels you can bundle, i don't see why it would cancel eachother out.

Good point, boneyard.  I was not aware that 20mhz and 40mhz clients can coexist, so you're logic makes sense.

Can 802.11ac AP co-exist with 802.11n AP?

In FAQ#12 the 11b should be removed, 11ac works only in 5GHz.

Not only that all the references to b/g should be removed, no?

All 802.11ac access points will also have a 2.4ghz radio, which will serve b/g clients.