As a result of an agreement between the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Gigabit Alliance – the WiGig Alliance –, attempts will be made to develop a specification for next-generation wireless devices; thereby aiming at notable increase in the currently-available speeds of frequency bands.

The group has recently formalized the 1.0 version of the specification, which will essentially use a large part of spectrum at 60GHz frequency band; achieving data rates of up to 7Gbps, along with remaining backwards compatible with current-generation Wi-Fi devices.

With the WiGig carving our specs and standards for supporting Wi-Fi operation in the 60-GHz frequency band, Wi-Fi – which presently operates in the 2.4-GHz and 5- GHz bands – will become notably faster.

In more specific terms, the move to 60 GHz would help achieve speeds in the range of between 1 gigabits per second (1 gbps) and 6 gbps, vis-à-vis the present-day theoretical maximum speed of 150 Mbps for 802.11n. In the opinion of analyst Xavier Ortiz, of ABI Research, Wi-Fi in 60 GHz band would symbolize the first in enabling consumers go truly wireless.

Commenting on the WiGig attempts, Edgar Figueroa, the Wi-Fi Alliance’s executive director, said: “Today’s Wi-Fi speeds are measured in the low hundreds of megabits per second. The 60-GHz band allows for significant boost in performance, so we are talking about speeds in the gigabits per second range.”