Broadcom debuts first gigabit Wi-Fi chipset

Stuart Corner
Monday, 09 January 2012 09:39

Business IT - Networking

Broadcom has announced what it claims to be the first chipsets supporting the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard and able to deliver gigabit per second bandwidth in the existing 5GHz WiFi spectrum.

Broadcom is not beings specific about the performance of its new chips. It says only that they are "three times faster and up to six times more power efficient than equivalent 802.11n solutions" and that they "dramatically improve the wireless range in the home, allowing consumers to watch HD-quality video from more devices, in more places, simultaneously."

According to Wikipedia: "Theoretically, [802.11ac] will enable multi-station WLAN throughput of at least 1Gbps and a maximum single link throughput of at least 500Mbps. This is accomplished by extending the air interface concepts embraced by 802.11n: wider RF bandwidth (up to 160 MHz), more MIMO spatial streams (up to 8), multi-user MIMO and high-density modulation (up to 256 QAM)."