The future of high speed wireless data communications took a major step forward today.   In a joint press release, the WiGig and the Wi-Fi Alliances announced a partnership and technology sharing agreement to develop “a next-generation Wi-Fi Alliance certification program supporting Wi-Fi operation in the 60 GHz frequency band.”

Traditional WiFi standards familiar to most consumers operate in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands.   Specifications such as IEEE 802.11g and 802.11n (finally ratified) provide the basis by which today’s wireless computer networks operate.   While networks based on these standards can theoretically achieve between 50-300 Mbps in idealized environments, their actual throughput and real-world performance is typically far less, precluding the kinds of high bandwidth data transmission, such as that from high-definition video streaming, becoming increasingly popular amongst consumers.

Using the unlicensed 60GHz spectrum, the WiGig Alliance and competing wirelessHD standard were initially driven by demand for a wireless HDMI transmission solution.   And although wirelessHD enabled products for wireless HDMI are available, they’re prohibitively expensive and lack the transmission range to supplant current wireless data networking standards.   But the throughput potential of these 60GHz technologies could completely change wireless networking as we know it, achieving rates up to 7Gbps – seven times that of wired gigabit Ethernet.

The importance of the partnership between the WiGig and Wi-Fi Alliances is the substantial increase in speed, range, and backwards compatibility with legacy 802.11 standards that any new wireless networking specification from the alliance will include.  In order not to obsolete existing wirelessly networked devices, WiGig enabled hardware will still support older wireless devices, although doing so at non-WiGig speeds.   This is an advantage WiGig has over the current wirelessHD specification.

With this partnership, a ratified specification, and membership list that includes several of the most influential companies in the industry, including Atheros, Broadcom, Cisco, Intel, Marvell, Nokia, Samsung, Panasonic, and Texas Instruments to name a few, the WiGig Alliance seems poised to radically improve the wireless networking landscape within just a few years.