Broadcom announces 5G Wi-Fi chip for entry-level devices

[Jesse]

Broadcom has announced that it will be bringing a new 802.11ac chip to the market for entry-level consumer devices. 802.11ac, commonly referred to as “5G Wi-Fi” because of its operation on the 5 GHz band, is the next iteration of wireless standards, and significantly increases the maximum throughput available over Wi-Fi.

Theoretical throughput of the new standard tops out at 1.3Gbps, but real world performance has been closer to 800Mbps. Still much faster than the current top speeds of 802.11n, 5G Wi-Fi has been largely unavailable despite the existence of several new 802.11ac equipped routers on the market. The problem to date -- which is really only a problem from an anxious consumer perspective, but par for the course by technology adoption standards -- is that even with a capable router, there are very few devices that have 5G chips to take advantage of the new specification.

Fortunately, that will all start to change soon, as Broadcom is one of the largest suppliers of Wi-Fi chips in the world and they say they already have companies sampling the chips for use in new devices. We should start to see lower-end smartphones, PCs, notebooks, and tablets equipped with the new BCM4229 chip in the second half of the year, Broadcom said in a press release Thursday.

The BCM4429 integrates the complete front-end, power amplifier (PA) and Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) into a single chip that in the previous generation were separate, allowing for low-cost, mass market implementation in a broad range of devices.

Have you gotten your hands on a 5G Wi-Fi device yet? Let us know about your experience in the comments.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/52690-broadcom-announces-5g-wi-fi-chip-for-entry-level-devices.html

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

The problem to date -- which is really only a problem from an anxious consumer perspective, but par for the course by technology adoption standards -- is that even with a capable router, there are very few devices that have 5G chips to take advantage of the new specification.

Well, your standard cat5 ethernet wire can get up to 100Mpbs, but no one ever does because the bottle neck isn't the wire, it's the service. This technology won't change that.

I can see it's use in corporate offices and business intranets though where the LANs are actually fast enough to utilize a speed boost.

Kudos to whoever thought of calling it 5G. Since 4G wireless stands for 4th Generation, it makes sense that 5G would be for Wi-fi and would be for 5Ghz. It'll help weed out the noobs and keep those of us who read tech websites one step ahead of the general population. It always makes me a hit at a party when I can explain the difference between Mbps and MB/s. Now I can bore people even longer by talking about the difference in 5G wi-fi and 4G wireless.

 

[Jesse]

Well, your standard cat5 ethernet wire can get up to 100Mpbs, but no one ever does because the bottle neck isn't the wire, it's the service. This technology won't change that.

I can see it's use in corporate offices and business intranets though where the LANs are actually fast enough to utilize a speed boost.

Kudos to whoever thought of calling it 5G. Since 4G wireless stands for 4th Generation, it makes sense that 5G would be for Wi-fi and would be for 5Ghz. It'll help weed out the noobs and keep those of us who read tech websites one step ahead of the general population. It always makes me a hit at a party when I can explain the difference between Mbps and MB/s. Now I can bore people even longer by talking about the difference in 5G wi-fi and 4G wireless.

Hahaha Mike, what kinds of parties are these? But you're right, the problem is that we never seem to have all of the right pieces in place to take full advantage of the latest technologies. However, I am really looking forward to this. Right now I have gigabit ethernet running through my whole house. It will be nice in the near future to not have to run any cables and expect nearly equal performance.

 

[VitalyT]

Well, your standard cat5 ethernet wire can get up to 100Mpbs, but no one ever does because the bottle neck isn't the wire, it's the service.

I work for companies of various sizes, and I no longer have one client who would still be using cat5 for business. In the private sector cat5 died years ago. Cat6 has been on the market for 5 years now, catering nicely for both 1Gbit and 10Gbit networks. I think your reasoning is way behind in time...

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

I work for companies of various sizes, and I no longer have one client who would still be using cat5 for business. In the private sector cat5 died years ago. Cat6 has been on the market for 5 years now, catering nicely for both 1Gbit and 10Gbit networks. I think your reasoning is way behind in time...

I was referring more to home and personal use. In the part of the article I quoted it mentioned 'consumer perspective' and 'devices' which to me means they'll be used for internet access, not only LAN use. Cat6 only reinforces the point though. I use a Cat5 wire at home for my internet, but switching to Cat6 would do nothing for my speed because my cable internet only gives me 10Mbps.

If your basic wi-fi internet connection can't get more than 20Mpbs, why should we pay for 1Gbps? I'm talking about your home internet/starbucks/hotel wifi here and speeds there are more like 5-10Mpbs (in my experience anyway).

Perhaps there's another benefit to the 5G wifi that we don't know about yet, like better signal strength, distance or ping times.

For LAN use though I understand the benefit, which is why I mentioned intranets in my first post.

 

[gamoniac]

I was referring more to home and personal use. In the part of the article I quoted it mentioned 'consumer perspective' and 'devices' which to me means they'll be used for internet access, not only LAN use. Cat6 only reinforces the point though. I use a Cat5 wire at home for my internet, but switching to Cat6 would do nothing for my speed because my cable internet only gives me 10Mbps.

I switched to cat6 and can never go back to cat5 again at home. I have a file server. Copying GB files now takes seconds (sustained rate of 120MB/s) instead of minutes. It's pretty sweet; you will like it if you backup or do lots of file copying. In addition, I think 802.11ac is good - it gets rids of wires in the room (It's not designed to penetrate many walls) and relieves traffic congestions caused by longer range signals. Also, higher speed means getting data across more quickly so less wait time among devices on your network.

 

[Critica1Hit]

I don't think its funny. Seriously, we NEED to stop trying to confuse people. This should NOT be referred to as "5G Wi-Fi".

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Well, your standard cat5 ethernet wire can get up to 100Mpbs, but no one ever does because the bottle neck isn't the wire, it's the service. This technology won't change that.

I can see it's use in corporate offices and business intranets though where the LANs are actually fast enough to utilize a speed boost.

Kudos to whoever thought of calling it 5G. Since 4G wireless stands for 4th Generation, it makes sense that 5G would be for Wi-fi and would be for 5Ghz. It'll help weed out the noobs and keep those of us who read tech websites one step ahead of the general population. It always makes me a hit at a party when I can explain the difference between Mbps and MB/s. Now I can bore people even longer by talking about the difference in 5G wi-fi and 4G wireless.[/quote]
I can really see the babes fawning all over you because of your wonderful spellbinding wireless wizardry and all things techno. They must hang on your every geek speak spoken word.
How much do you charge for lessons?

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

I can really see the babes yawning all over you because of your wonderful spellbinding wireless wizardry and all things techno. They must hang on your every geek speak spoken word.
How much do you charge for lessons?

Fixed for accuracy.

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Fixed for accuracy.

Good one. I would've said it myself but I was afraid you'd charge me double for lessons.

 

[Jad Chaar]

The 5GHz band on my dual band N router isnt too great. I dont see a big improvement and it doesnt have as much range compared to the 2.4GHz one. I hope AC improves it.

 

[Dr.No]

Well, your standard cat5 ethernet wire can get up to 100Mpbs, but no one ever does because the bottle neck isn't the wire, it's the service. This technology won't change that.

Just an fyi - CAT 5e cables support 1000BASE-T.

 

[Burty117]

Well at home I have a netgear R6300 1.3Gb wireless 802.11AC 5G router and a desktop computer upstairs we had to upgrade to a PCI-E card 5G 1.3Gb 802.11AC wireless adapter due to the standard 2.4G N being too slow to cope with the internet speeds and also being completely saturated.

when we first got the router, bar my iPad, everything connected via 802.11N, once an xbox was downloading, a desktop was gaming and something else was netflixing, ping times was dramatically reduced and things started to struggle, I could see on the 2 cabled in desktops that the internet was fine though? after some investigation it turns out 802.11N just can't cope with the amount of traffic we were using, no that I have an iPhone 5, the iPad and the main desktop PC upstairs (used to download and play games) are on the 5G 302.11AC everything has been much quicker and (finally) the desktop upstairs can utilize our entire home broadband bandwidth (72Mbps down, 18.5Mbps up).

I also found the range to be increased slightly, I can now get into my car parked across the drive way and still pickup WiFi signal (all be it, weak) on my phone which I couldn't before, so far, quite impressed