ABI: 1.5 billion chipsets with 802.11ad to ship in 2018

ABI says the growth of 802.11ac and 802.11ad will occur in very different ways. 802.11ac will explode into devices, including smartphones, from the start while 802.11ad will see a more modest and staggered growth. 802.11ac is being pushed into smartphones by key carriers’ device requirements that are in sync with 802.11ac hotspot plans for more robust Wi-Fi offloading. “The push towards 11ac adoption overpowers the minor additional cost of dual-band 802.11n/802.11ac chipsets that will be used in smartphones,” states research director Philip Solis of ABI. “Perhaps surprising even to industry insiders, we will likely see 2X2 802.11ac implementations in smartphones in a few years.” ABI finds the proportion of various 802.11ac-enabled products will remain relatively consistent from 2013 to 2018, with smartphones making up 40% of those in 2013 and 46% in 2018, where over 3.5 billion Wi-Fi chipsets with 802.11ac will ship. The Wi-Fi Alliance is just about to start certification of products using the protocol, yet its shipments have started and are already on track to distribute hundreds of millions this year, according to ABI. 802.11ac finally pushes Wi-Fi more towards the 5 GHz spectrum which is cleaner and permits for the much larger channel sizes that allow for greater speeds and capacity, adds ABI. 802.11ad will phase from larger to smaller products, starting from periphera...