suited than 2.4 and 5 GHz wireless technologies for
consumer AV applications. These applications consist of
primarily uncompressed HD video and gaming, wireless
HDMI, and other wireless personal area networking
(WPAN) operations. 60 GHz is not susceptible to the
interferences of the lower bands and, due to its beamforming
capabilities, can use multiple data streams in the
same spatial environment without interfering with itself.
These specifications are now maintained and offered by
the Wi-Fi Alliance and use the underlying specifications
of 802.11ad.
802.11ah: Approved by the IEEE Task Group AH in
October of 2016, 802.11ah was published in early 2017.
This standard uses the ISM 902 to 928 MHz band
and provides extended coverage range, less energy
consumption, and increased data rates. It is meant to
be an alternative to the current 802.15 standard (i.e.,
Bluetooth, Zigbee), which uses the higher 2.4 and 5.2
GHz bands. With the emergence of the internet of things
(IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) networks, it is
believed that the current Wi-Fi/Bluetooth architecture
will not be able to scale. When the standard published in
2017, it prompted the manufacturing of some chipsets. It
is mostly targeted at the industrial M2M world, probably
displacing some ZigBee installations, and it shows great
promise for residential and commercial applications as
well. It is replacing Bluetooth/Wi-Fi and moving to an
12 I ICT TODAY
IPV6 format. The Wi-Fi Alliance has already branded
their version and introduced it as HaLow™.
It makes sense that a sub-GHz technology would
be more efficient, but that may be another hurdle. The
ISM band for 902 to 928 MHz is only available in North
and South America, Greenland and some islands in the
eastern Pacific Ocean, with some exceptions.
ITU coordinates the global use of shared radio
spectrum and divides the earth into three regions as
shown in Figure 4. The Americas are Region 2, the
only region that appears to have access to this band as
an unlicensed ISM band. The rest of the world, except
Antarctica, are Regions 1 and 3 where that frequency
space is dedicated for other uses. It is not clear yet how
this standard will be deployed in these two regions.
WIRELESS TOMORROW
The next big step in wireless LANs is 802.11ax. It is
intended to be backward compatible with 802.11n and
802.11ac, with probable throughput improvement values
of five to ten times. It is an active working group that
recently passed Draft 3.0 by ballot. Draft 4.0 is being
re-circulated with final specifications expected toward
the end of 2019. In anticipation, some manufacturers
are already building the chipsets and the Wi-Fi Alliance
has announced that it will be marketed as Wi-Fi 6, a new
naming convention to simplify consumer understanding.
They have also renamed 802.11n and 802.11ac as Wi-Fi 4
and Wi-Fi 5 respectively.
Licensed 70-80-90 GHz bands:
Still in the millimeter wave space,
licensed 70-80-90 GHz bands are being
used when longer ranges are required.
They must be licensed and frequency
coordinated in the U.S. With the
relatively small footprint they cover and
the fact they are not widely deployed
yet, licensing tends to be much easier
than earlier microwave systems. These
systems operate in the 71-76 GHz, 81-
86 GHz and 92-95 GHz bands and can
utilize channels up to 500 MHz wide.
Depending u FIGURE 4: ITU global regions. Source, International Telecommunication Union. pon the rain zone and