More companies hop on the WiGig bandwagon

More companies recently joined the WiGig Alliance for advancing high-speed wireless technologies, lifting the group’s total membership above 20.

Toshiba joined the alliance’s board of directors, while Agilent Technologies, Beam Networks, Ralink Technology Corp. and Texas Instruments became members of the organization.

WiGig’s goal is to develop a gigabit-speed wireless technology, one that would be used in consumer electronics, handheld devices and PCs. The group says it is recruiting a breadth of companies to become members, to get representation from an “ecosystem” spanning the industry.

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More companies recently joined the WiGig Alliance for advancing high-speed wireless technologies, lifting the group’s total membership above 20.

Toshiba joined the alliance’s board of directors, while Agilent Technologies, Beam Networks, Ralink Technology Corp. and Texas Instruments became members of the organization.

WiGig’s goal is to develop a gigabit-speed wireless technology, one that would be used in consumer electronics, handheld devices and PCs. The group says it is recruiting a breadth of companies to become members, to get representation from an “ecosystem” spanning the industry.

The Wireless Gigabit, or WiGig, Alliance is relatively new. We first heard from the group in May. There have been previous attempts to utilize unlicensed 60GHz spectrum for some really fast wireless communications, but nothing has yet taken root. Analysts said in May that WiGig could actually result in products pretty quickly.

The 802.11n wireless LAN standard was recently approved by the IEEE, and it represents the high-water mark for wireless communications at the moment. Tests show 11n access points hitting 250Mbps in throughput, so the WiGig Alliance’s goal would be at least four times that.

The alliance says that its technology will coexist with and complement 802.11 systems. The specification is scheduled to be available to the group’s member companies by the end of this year, and the WiGig Alliance plans to certify products as interoperable under WiGig.

WiGig already had Atheros, Broadcom, Dell, Intel, LG, Marvell, MediaTek, Microsoft, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, Samsung and others on board.

Read more about wireless & mobile in Network World's Wireless & Mobile section.