IEEE forms 802.11 Extremely High Throughput Study Group

The IEEE has established an 802.11 Extremely High Throughput Study Group to initiate discussion on new IEEE 802.11 features for bands between 1 and 7.125 GHz. The group is identifying requirements for a possible amendment to IEEE 802.11 that would increase peak throughput to support demanding applications such as video over wireless local area networks (WLANs), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

“We are seeking stakeholders throughout the IEEE 802.11 ecosystem to share their experiences with the standard and needs for features such as more spatial streams, higher bandwidth, multi-AP (access point) techniques and multiband switching, aggregation and operation,” said Michael Montemurro, chair of the IEEE 802.11 Extremely High Throughput Study Group. “We envision a rapidly paced effort over the next six to nine months, which we hope will bring into clear definition the most important requirements to be addressed in accelerated development of a possible future amendment to the IEEE 802.11 base standard.”

The IEEE 802.11 Real Time Applications Topic Interest Group is quantifying performance lags and stability issues that have been observed with real-time applications such as mobile and multiplayer games, robotics and industrial automation, as well as the range of mechanisms in the industry to address those issues. The group is working to document usage models and requirements metrics for real-time applications.

“Immersive gaming, for example, is very latency sensitive and requires a quick turnaround on packets for users to enjoy a high-quality experience. Jitter, packet loss and what’s going on throughout the network can have a large impact on these real-time applications, which may have only moderate bandwidth requirements but have very low tolerance for latency,” said Allan Jones, chair of the IEEE 802.11 Real Time Applications Topic Interest Group. “What we’re trying to do in our group is define more specifically what these requirements are for this particular category of applications, toward the goal of informing ongoing IEEE 802.11 innovation.”