User Manual

Why Should a Business Consider

Upgrading to 802.11ac Wi-Fi?

Business is all about connections, from the relationships that allow you to climb the ladder of success to the

contact you make with customers and colleagues as a business owner. And like these connections, your Wi-Fi

works unseen, quietly powering everything from your access point to your iPad‘s PoS system. Whether you’re

providing free Wi-Fi to coffee-sipping patrons or uploading high-quality media ﬁles to a faraway cloud, it’s the

workhorse your business can’t live without. You hold your products and services to the highest of the standards;

it’s time to treat your Wi-Fi the same way.

What Makes 802.11ac Today’s Standard?

If you glance at the specs on your new Chromebook or router, you’ll see the numbers “802.11” followed by

a letter or combination of letters — for example, 802.11n or 802.11ac. These letters indicate the wireless

standard the Wi-Fi-enabled product is operating on, and signify that it has met speciﬁc qualiﬁcations which

fall into a certain generation of gear. These generations (or standards) are most noticeably separated by their

maximum connection speeds.

Speaking of speeds, devices that support the common 802.11n standard introduced in 2009 can handle

maximum data speeds of 450 megabits per second (Mbps), and can operate on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz

bands. Bands are like radio freeways for data; while the 2.4 GHz frequency is often congested with competing

Wi-Fi signals, 5 GHz connections typically make for less competition and more stable Internet. In comparison,

802.11ac devices operate exclusively on the 5 GHz frequency, and offer max speeds up to 1.3 gigabits per

second (Gbps). To put that in perspective, remember that one gigabit is equal to 1,000 megabits — and that’s

for just the ﬁrst wave of 802.11ac devices. Introduced about a year ago, there’s a new generation of “Wave 2”

(or Next-Gen) products also on the 802.11ac spec that allow for theoretical speeds of up to 6.9 Gbps.

802.11ac is More Than Just Fast

In addition to wider, less crowded 5 GHz bands, 802.11ac differs from 802.11n with the addition of

beamforming (which, despite the name, isn‘t actually a Jedi power). While older devices broadcast Wi-Fi signals

in all directions, beamforming increases signal efﬁciency by focusing them directly on client devices.

An even bigger upgrade, though, is multi-user MIMO (multi-input multi-output) antennas, a feature found in

802.11ac Wave 2 devices. To understand why MU-MIMO is extremely beneﬁcial for high trafﬁc areas, imagine

that you could see the Wi-Fi signal coming from your old router or AP while more than one person was using the

connection — you’d see a scattered picture, with data ﬁring off to each device one at a time.

Business Solutions

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Why Should a Business Consider Upgrading to 802.11ac Wi-Fi? Business Solutions Business is all about connections, from the relationships that allow you to climb the ladder of success to the contact you make with customers and colleagues as a business owner. And like these connections, your Wi-Fi works unseen, quietly powering everything from your access point to your iPad‘s PoS system.
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This sequential pattern leaves users susceptible to connection gaps, making for a spotty connection (and likely, frustrated customers). With MU-MIMO, the data stream is simultaneous rather than sequential, sending information to multiple clients at once without breaking the connection. This creates much more stable Internet, and is far better suited to the modern Wi-Fi ecosystem. What 802.11ac Means for Your Business If you keep the books for your business, you’ll surely notice that 802.