Possible wireless cards for next-gen Macs show 802.11ac connectivity
Ahead of an expected refresh of Apple's Mac lineup, images of what appear to be the wireless cards that could go into those computers have appeared online with potential support for high-speed 802.11ac connectivity.
The images showed up on Monday on TonyMacX86. The card shown in the images is a Broadcom BCM94360CD PCI-E mini custom combo WLAN+Bluetooth card.
That card, it appears, supports IEEE 802.11ac ? a wireless standard also known as "5G" or Gigabit Wi-Fi. 802.11ac allows for speeds up to twice as fast as 802.11n, the preceding standard.
The fifth-generation of wireless protocol, 802.11ac sends data over two channels, with each carrying single link speeds of 500 megabits per second. In theory, the standard should produce speeds of up to 1.3Gbps.
Code previously discovered in the OS X 10.8.4 Mountain Lion beta build tipped off observers to the possibility that Apple would soon be bringing the 802.11ac wireless protocol to its Mac lineup, and the pictured card, if valid, would seem to verify that.
Apple was also rumored earlier in the year to have struck a deal with Broadcom, the maker of the pictured card, to put 802.11ac chips into its 2013 Mac lineup. In January, job listings on the company's site revealed that it was looking to hire experts in the new wireless standard.
Apple is widely expected to show off refreshed versions of its Mac lineup at this year's Worldwide Developer Conference. These new Macs may feature the next generation of Intel processors, dubbed Haswell.
The company is also expected to show off previews of the latest version of OS X and its iOS mobile platform, but Macs are especially anticipated, given reports of shortages in certain lines ahead of the developer conference.
The images showed up on Monday on TonyMacX86. The card shown in the images is a Broadcom BCM94360CD PCI-E mini custom combo WLAN+Bluetooth card.
That card, it appears, supports IEEE 802.11ac ? a wireless standard also known as "5G" or Gigabit Wi-Fi. 802.11ac allows for speeds up to twice as fast as 802.11n, the preceding standard.
The fifth-generation of wireless protocol, 802.11ac sends data over two channels, with each carrying single link speeds of 500 megabits per second. In theory, the standard should produce speeds of up to 1.3Gbps.
Code previously discovered in the OS X 10.8.4 Mountain Lion beta build tipped off observers to the possibility that Apple would soon be bringing the 802.11ac wireless protocol to its Mac lineup, and the pictured card, if valid, would seem to verify that.
Apple was also rumored earlier in the year to have struck a deal with Broadcom, the maker of the pictured card, to put 802.11ac chips into its 2013 Mac lineup. In January, job listings on the company's site revealed that it was looking to hire experts in the new wireless standard.
Apple is widely expected to show off refreshed versions of its Mac lineup at this year's Worldwide Developer Conference. These new Macs may feature the next generation of Intel processors, dubbed Haswell.
The company is also expected to show off previews of the latest version of OS X and its iOS mobile platform, but Macs are especially anticipated, given reports of shortages in certain lines ahead of the developer conference.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
The bottleneck for most users is not their current Wifi but their internet connection. With the exception of people in Chattanooga few of us have internet connections close to even saturating G let alone N protocols. Although this will help when streaming content from your computer to your TV for example I don't see any reason to trade in my current Airport extreme. Until 1 Gigabit-per-second Internet speed via FTTH is available to more towns I just don't see AC as anything to get excited about.
I fully agree with you. Most users will not notice a difference. However, given the caliber of folks here (which do not represent the majority), there will be a noticeable difference on the LAN. Transferring large files between systems (like TimeCapsule) will benefit from this.
The ones that will receive a rude surprise are those that think it will make their Internet run faster... *chuckle*
I would imagine if not the same day, the routers would come before the Macs getting 802.11ac. If before — which I think is the least likely of the two possible scenarios — not by much. I don't think it makes any sense to update Macs with 802.11ac but not have the routers available. Since there is no sign that Apple has included the HW sans the drivers (like it's done once before), I'd say the reason for the hold up is for the routers to be available.
I hope the routers are more robust this time. Apple's offerings aren't faring too well with the number of WiFI devices we have connected to them. I think the CPU is a bottleneck but it's hard to be sure. Since Apple removed access to SNMP I've had to use alternate and less effective methods to test my home network.
There are several reasons I'd like to see an iOS-based AirPorts, but most notably I'd like to see an Apple Home Server with HW RAID that can move the network "hub" from iTunes on your PC/Mac to a networked server for all the users in your household and secure remote WAN access that will eventually include home automation.
Am I asking for too much? "Give him an inch, he'll take a foot, and before you know it you won't have a leg to stand on."
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
The bottleneck for most users is not their current Wifi but their internet connection.
This. Unless the range of the Time Capsule/Airports get expanded noticeably or an additional feature is added- I'll just hang onto the current generations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
The bottleneck for most users is not their current Wifi but their internet connection. With the exception of people in Chattanooga few of us have internet connections close to even saturating G let alone N protocols. Although this will help when streaming content from your computer to your TV for example I don't see any reason to trade in my current Airport extreme. Until 1 Gigabit-per-second Internet speed via FTTH is available to more towns I just don't see AC as anything to get excited about.
Gigabit WIFI makes NAS (or TimeCapsule) based TimeMachine backups much more reasonable. Streaming to Apple TV as you mentioned, as well Airplay and transfering files between computers will be significantly faster with AC.
Also, you never get the thoughput the spec allows unless you practically next to the WiFi router. N has a theoretical limit of 400Mb, but I've depending on were in the house I am, I get far, far less than that, often less than 20Mb. My internet connection is 30Mb/s, and internet connection are getting faster, so AC make sense going forward.
I'll upgrade for the faster WiFi on my LAN. Currently it's too slow for me to copy over an 8GB movie from my Mac Pro to mi mini which sits under my TV, so I resorted to copying it over with a SD Card. The difference in speed of USB2 vs the build-in card reader in the mini is very[/] noticeable.
Wish I had empty PVC pipes to every conceivable location in my house when I had it renovated, but running a wire to the mini just isn't feasible, really.
PS: why don't you change your sig to: "one of each"?
You two are talking about LAN v WAN speeds, but you need to consider all parts between two end-points. Routing adds overhead, and WiFi is in itself a bottleneck with modern networks. There design is to increase network performance over layer 2 options, but this involves overhead in many ways. Consumer routers have not kept up with the number devices that are being attached via WiFi. And since WiFi can only send -or- receive from one device at a time per band this can create a bottleneck. Just consider two wirelessly connected devices trading files with each other on the same LAN. You aren't getting 450Mb/s in and out on each device at the same time. Now consider a dozen devices all actively connected in a home with just 3 or 4 people. Now consider how common video streaming is. You have a router that is likely working much harder than it was intended when it was designed more than half-decade ago. And all that's before you consider interference.
How many devices are on your network? AppleTV, 5 Macs, 2 Win PCs, 3 iPhones, 2 Android phone, 2 iPads, and 1 Kindle for me, and that's with a household of 2 people plus my neighbors. Things like the Kindle aren't active too much both others, especially the Macs, are very active.
Hear hear!
600. And yes, the world is moving to fiber optic, making 54Mb obsolete, albeit slowly.
In my area they've started to implement fiber, and I will upgrade the moment I can. Plans are currently 50Mb/s, 100 and 500 (€ 58, € 68 & € 88/m). And that's for upload as well, which is even more important to me.
All true. And for that reason I setup a 5GHz WiFi network for some devices and 2.4GHz for some other ones.
Active? I'll say, looking at your post count and knowing you closed your previous account at 25k posts!
- How do you setup a fast LAN of macs, ideally with fiber optics?
- Would a 802.11ac wireless LAN be fast enough for this?
It's currently at 600Mb/s. That 450Mb/s already 40MHz frequency and 400ns Guard Intervals but with only 3 spatial streams (aka antennas). There are and have been options for several years that offer 4 spatial streams thus providing 600Mb/s.
802.11ac still uses the same maximum Gaurd Interval of 400ns but increases the frequency range to 160MHz, starting with 20MHz and doubling, making this 4x higher than 802.11n's maximum of 40MHz. 802.11ac also increases the modulation to 256-QAM over 802.11n's 64-QAM for their respective maximums. I would expect Apple's first 802.11ac router not to use 160MHz or 256-QAM right away. I'm not even sure we can expect 4 spatial streams.
1) The only Mac with a Fiber Channel is the Mac Pro with expensive PCIe options. Even if you bought that you'd still not be able to connect it to other non-Mac Pros. It's likely use is to connect into a router or switch where others access via Ethernet or WiFi.
2) You're already fine with a cabled LAN so why skip Ethernet when it's faster than WiFi?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilBoogie
Wish I had empty PVC pipes to every conceivable location in my house when I had it renovated, but running a wire to the mini just isn't feasible, really.
PS: why don't you change your sig to: "one of each"?
The PVC wouldve been a great idea. Oh hindsight... where were you a while ago?
I guess I could change it to "Time Capsule and Airport Extreme- one of each". lol
One of my personal check list items (as I'll be keeping my next laptop for several years as the rest of the data ecosystem catches up).
Haswell (better battery life, performance and graphics on MBA's) + 811ac + ??? = Sweet!
You aren't the only one waiting! I expect that an Airport would be my first purchase when Apple release all the new hardware at WWDC. After all got to build up that home infrastructure.
You mentioned antennas, that cold be a big issue for realizing full speeds in the handheld devices. I'm not even sure the hardware can manage the full capability of the current hardware.
However that really doesn't mean the hardware isn't valuable for many home users. This is really the first version of WiFi that really makes wired connections questionable.