An MIT blog claims that wireless technology, capable of boosting data speeds by more than ten times, will be seen this year.
Tom Simonite, writing on the MIT Technology Review, predicted that 2015 will see the technology become widely available in the consumer market, as technology giants increasingly invest in the platform.
Named 60 gigahertz, or more colloquially, WiGig, the technology is able to encode more information due to its higher frequency radio signal. This can allow up to seven gigabits of data to be transferred per second, compared to the maximum 433 megabits per second available with current Wi-Fi.
Simonite cites Qualcomm, Samsung and Intel as examples of companies that have already invested heavily in WiGig and expect to see it commercialised this year.
At CES last week, Qualcomm demonstrated a new wireless router for the home using the technology, and Samsung will feature their own implementation in their telecommunications equipment, audio-visual and medical devices, and in their Samsung Smart Home products.
"Samsung has successfully overcome the barriers to the commercialisation of 60GHz millimetre-wave band Wi-Fi technology, and looks forward to commercialising this breakthrough technology," said Samsung’s Kim Chang Yong back in October.
"New and innovative changes await Samsung’s next-generation devices, while new possibilities have been opened up for the future development of Wi-Fi technology."
Another piece of wireless technology we can expect to see more of in the near future is ZigBee, a low-cost and low-power alternative to Wi-Fi already used in home automation systems and wireless sensor networks. ZigBee is, however, unlikely to rival WiGig due to its low data transfer rates.
