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White Paper

The next standard to the market is 802.11ac,

which was ratified in January 2014. Some

products supporting the new standard are

already available, with a second wave to

follow in 2015 supporting further aspects

of the standard.

Enterprises need to decide when to

implement 802.11ac and how to plan and

implement the transition at the appropriate

time. The decision will vary from one

organisation to another and will depend on both

their immediate needs and their long term vision.

The increasing

demand for wireless

bandwidth and growth

of BYOD are driving

the development of

new standards to

increase capacity and

throughput and address

congestion.

IMPLEMENTING

802.11 ac –

REVOLUTION OR

EVOLUTION?

Fluke Networks 2 www.flukenetworks.com

White Paper

To enable their organisation to make the right decision at the right time, network engineers need to understand what the technology

offers and the various options available for implementation. This White Paper explains the technology behind the 802.11ac standard, the

potential benefits it offers and the factors that should be considered when planning the future development of their wireless network.

The need for greater wireless capacity

Increasing user demands for mobility and connectionless protocols have led to tremendous growth in requirements for wireless capacity

within the enterprise. Whether using a company supplied laptop or tablet or their own devices (BYOD), users expect the performance of

mobile applications to keep pace with their wired counterparts. They want to use any device to access any application, anywhere, without

experiencing any lag or delay in performance.

Growth in wireless use for business and personal use is reflected in increased equipment sales. While PC sales are sluggish, worldwide

consumer Wi-Fi customer premises equipment shipments were more than 43.3 million at the end of 1Q 2013 according to ABI Research, a

16.8 per cent increase over the last quarter of 2012.

At the same time we are seeing the growth of voice over IP (VoIP) across the enterprise, driven by increasingly mature technology and a

desire to reduce costs. By having a single network infrastructure, organisations can – in theory at least – reduce capital expenditure and

create a single infrastructure that is easier to maintain and manage.

However, using the same wireless infrastructure to support voice as well as data imposes a penalty in the amount of traffic that can

be supported. When VoIP is introduced, more bandwidth hungry applications such as voice and video will be driven over the wireless

infrastructure. 4G roll-out will also necessitate an unavoidable increase in the number of VoIP calls made from portable devices, as this is

the only type of communication offered by up-to-date networking technology.

These additional demands on the wireless LAN (WLAN) are creating increased pressure to redesign and upgrade wireless infrastructure

to provide more bandwidth at higher rates. One alternative to increasing bandwidth is to increase compression of the audio signal, but

the trade-off is that any packet loss will have a much more significant impact on call quality. This increasing demand from users is also

increasing congestion in the 2.4GHz spectrum, leading to interference and a detrimental effect on the user experience.

Introducing a new standard: 802.11ac

In an attempt to address congestion and the need for higher

throughout speeds, the IEEE has now ratified the new 802.11ac

standard for WLAN technology, which is backwards compatible with

802.11n.

So how does the new standard intend to deliver all these benefits?

First, it moves wireless traffic to the 5GHz band, instead of 2.4GHz.

At the moment this is less busy, so there should be significant

benefits to users. Second, it claims to provide ‘faster throughput at

greater distance’ – which is why it is also known as the very high

throughput or VHT amendment. In essence this means providing

higher bit rates over a WLAN connection, improving spectral

efficiency and building on the techniques introduced in 802.11n

through providing:

• wider channels

• higher modulation and coding

• beamforming

• multi-user MIMO

• more spatial streams

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac products:

KEY BENEFITS

• Higher data rate – Delivering

data