Tell me about WiGig and why it’s going to be important for the home networking and technology industry.
WiGig Alliance was established by technology leaders within the CE, PC, semiconductor and handheld industries to address the need for faster, wireless connectivity between computing, communications and entertainment devices. The organization has developed a unified specification that allows devices to communicate at multi-gigabit speeds never before experienced with wireless technology.
WiGig’s mission is to establish a global ecosystem of high-speed and easy-to-use wireless devices that work together seamlessly to connect people in the digital age. WiGig technology enables multi-gigabit wireless communications among consumer electronics, handheld devices and PCs, and drives industry convergence to a single radio using the readily available, unlicensed 60 GHz spectrum.
WiGig enables Docking, Networking and Video
Docking – everything is a dock – any time you connect two devices, whether it be a phone to a notebook, a tablet to a monitor, or a traditional notebook to mechanical docking station, you are “docking”. WiGig’s technology allows you to do this wirelessly, at multi-gigabit speeds. So files are sync’d and backed up virtually instantaneously; data can be moved around all of your devices when you want them there; and in your home office, you can transform your tablet into a full workstation by adding computing power to it through a wireless bus extension.
Networking – connect to a tri-band home router, connect to a tri-band NAS, or connect directly to other devices at multi-gigabit speeds. All the things you love about Wi-Fi, but over 10x faster, while maintaining backwards compatibility to all of your existing devices, and connection throughout your home.
Video – enable a wide range a of usage, from uncompressed streaming video to networked video solutions over the air.
What are the advantages of WiGig over Wi-Fi technologies? How is WiGig going to affect the range, functionality and performance of wireless networking?
Speed, power efficiency, high density deployments
Raw speed – the Wireless Gigabit Alliance specification defines Wi-Fi up to 7 Gbps. Exisiting .11n 3×3 solutions (current top of the line) is 450 Mbps. .11n 4×4 exists, but in relatively modest deployments goes up to 600 Mbps.
Power efficiency – Wilocity’s WiGig (.11ad) solution can do up to 4.6 Gbps in the same power envelope as performance .11n solutions. Therefore, the power per Gb is over 10x lower! Much less power consumption for your everyday tasks. Additionally, handheld solutions will be upwards of 2 Gbps in form factors currently supporting 1×1 .11n.
High Density Deployments – as you get more and more Wi-Fi devices in your home, they will start to share the bandwidth and the more devices you have, the lower performance they will get per connection. Instead of transmitting energy in all directions, regardless of who you are talking to, WiGig products direct the energy directly to the receiver, thereby being a good neighbor and allowing everyone to share the spectrum and airspace equally keeping everyone’s performance at the highest rates, despite dense deployments.
Advantages over legacy Wi-Fi – as we are a complimentary technology… don’t see WiGig replacing Wi-Fi.
Provide me some examples of applications that WiGig could greatly affect Storage
Media storage is measured in TB and distributed among various devices
Consumption is also split between platforms
Instantaneous sync of media content is a necessity
Key app example: upload/download of HD video files
User downloads a single 1080P movie to his tablet – 3 minutes (vs. ~ 1hour with 11n)
User transfers 1000 photos – 5 seconds (vs. ~ 1.5 minutes with 11n )
Video Distribution
TV, PC monitor or projector is the primary display
Sharing a clip, HD movie or gaming
Media sharing on large screens needs to be wired-equivalent quality and with near-zero latency
Key app example: gaming display with tablet as controller
Docking
We all own multiple platforms with different capabilities
“Docking” is not new, but wireless enables a seamless experience in which any platform can host any other
Docking transforms simple consumption devices to productivity devices
Key app example: phone as the main workstation
Phone in proximity to a wireless dock adds better UI, bigger display, larger and faster storage and any level of peripheral connectivity (e.g. USB3, SATA, GbE)
What is a realistic time frame for WiGig? When is it going to be rolled out for consumer use?
Wilocity is sampling its tri-band 2.4/5/60 (wigig) product to customers today and expects customers to start shipping in mid-2012.
Tell us about Wilocity. (Founders, background, technology, etc)
Founded in March 2007, by a core team of executives and engineers from Intel’s Wi-Fi Centrino® group, Wilocity is developing next-generation 60 GHz multi-gigabit wireless chipsets for both the mobile computing platform and peripheral markets that will enable mobile device manufacturers to deliver the thin and light platforms that consumers want without sacrificing the performance and functionality that consumers need. Based on the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) specification, Wilocity’s wPCIe TM technology will enable truly multi-gigabit wireless for a wide range of applications from I/O to networking to video.
Mark Grodzinsky, Vice President of Marketing
As Wilocity’s Vice President of Marketing, Mark leads the company’s global marketing, product definition, strategic alliances and marketing communication for the company’s introduction of groundbreaking wireless technologies to consumers and businesses. With a background in both engineering and marketing management, Mark has spent the past decade immersed in the wireless networking industry and has played leadership roles in guiding Wi-Fi development through his participation on several industry boards and standards bodies. Mark currently serves as the Marketing Chairman and Board Member for the Wireless Gigabit Alliance, which was formed to establish a unified specification for 60 GHz wireless technology. Mark is also the Chair of Wi-Fi Alliance’s 60 GHz Gigabit Wireless Marketing Task Group. Prior to that, Mark was the Chairman of the Enhanced Wireless Consortium and of the Wi-Fi Alliance (TGn) Marketing Task Group.
Mark joined Wilocity from Intel, where he led the product definition and marketing activities for Intel’s line of 802.11n Wi-Fi products, for the Centrino mobile technology platform. Previously, he was a Product Line Manager at Mobilian, a start-up company making Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipsets and software; Mobilian was acquired by Intel in late 2003. Mark holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) from the Harvard Business School.