WildPackets Survey: 802.11ac Adoption is Slow But Steady

In the age of the cloud, big data and software-defined networking, radio-based wireless Internet can seem like something of a legacy technology, or at least one that has stopped rapidly evolving. But network management vendor WildPackets says demand for bigger and better Wi-Fi in the form of the 802.11ac standard remains significant within the channel, suggesting that the faster networking it supports will be important to continued expansion of other network technologies.

802.11ac, for those readers who aren't up-to-date on the latest proceedings of the IEEE Standards Association, is the next-generation wireless networking protocol that will succeed 802.11n, the standard that your home and office wireless routers probably use today if they were manufactured in the last five years or so. The new standard offers much greater bandwidth than previous protocols and, in many scenarios, better range, among other advantages that make it possible to deliver cloud-based apps and data over Wi-Fi much more effectively than 802.11n allowed.

802.11ac was officially approved and made ready for the market in January 2014, but adoption since that time has been only moderate, according to a survey conducted by WildPackets titled, "State of 802.11ac Adoption." So far, only 23 percent of respondents to the survey, which targeted companies of a diverse range of sizes across a range of industries, have implemented 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

But while another quarter of respondents indicated no plans to upgrade to the newest standard, the rest are shooting to do so within the next year, "meaning that by the end of 2015 almost 50 percent will have 802.11ac deployed," according to WildPackets.

To be sure, these numbers don't suggest that 802.11ac wireless networking is at the top of many companies' lists for infrastructure upgrades. That's not too surprising, given that a majority of respondents to the survey also indicated that only 10 percent of the devices on their networks currently support the new standard, which shows the benefits to be reaped from upgrading are not yet substantial. And the fact that 802.11ac speed increases and other advantages are more difficult to implement in practice than in theory certainly does not help to spur upgrades.

Still, the data WildPackets collected is a reliable sign that, well over a decade after it began widesprad commercial implemenetation, wifi is still evolving, and the new standard remains an important part of networking infrastructure upgrades. In addition, although the WildPackets survey did not address the issue of content delivery, that is no doubt an area where 802.11ac stands to be particularly crucial for allowing cloud-based content and app providers to deliver data to mobile devices in homes and businesses in ways that are currently not realistic.

So while SDN may be the hottest thing in networking at the moment, don't overlook the advent of 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which will likely become an important backdrop to the cloud and big data networking innovations of the future.