WiGig Alliance completes specs for next-gen Wi-Fi

The new Wi-Fi specification will be released early next year

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) has completed the specifications for the next generation of Wi-Fi, which will be released to member companies in the first quarter of 2010.

The group is promising data transfer rates of up to 7GB/s, and confirmed that the new version will be backwards-compatible with the 802.11 standard.

"WiGig has reached a milestone with the completion of its specification as promised by year end, demonstrating the organisation's commitment to deliver," said Craig Mathias, a principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group.

"By complementing Wi-Fi and enabling multi-gigabit speeds, the versatile specification is a very significant achievement on the road to the next generation of wireless local area network products."

The new standard runs at 60GHz, unlike existing 802.11 kit which operates at frequencies of 2.4GHz and 5GHz, but WiGig sees no reason why hardware cannot incorporate the standard.

"When we launched the WiGig Alliance in May, we announced our plan to complete the industry's first unified 60GHz specification by the fourth quarter of 2009, and we are proud to deliver on this promise to the industry," said Dr Ali Sadri, president and chairman of WiGig.

"We are rapidly paving the way for the introduction of the next generation of high-performance wireless products - PCs, mobile handsets, TVs and displays, Blu-ray disc players, digital cameras and many more."

WiGig has strong manufacturer support, including Intel, AMD, Samsung, LG and Nvidia.