Qualcomm’s Newest Chipsets Pave The Way For 10Gbps Wi-Fi In Our Homes

It’s not surprising, but it remains disappointing that 10Gbps Ethernet has taken so long to catch on in the home. The standard 1Gbps connection most of us deal with is about on par with what we’d see from real-world transfer performance out of a mechanical hard drive. SATA SSDs are rated at 6Gbps, but their real-world performance is often half that – but that’s still three times the most common home Ethernet speed.

There have been promises of getting better wired performance in our homes for a while, but if Qualcomm’s promise of 10Gbps Wi-Fi turns into a reality, then 1Gbps Ethernet is going to feel way behind the curve. If it’s not considered to be already.

Qualcomm’s new chipset will surely grace a router like this in the future

With some new chipsets, the QCA64x8 and QCA64x1, Qualcomm isn’t just promising 10Gbps bandwidth, but wired-like latencies, as well. Of course, the closer you are to the router, the better your latencies are going to be, but this 60GHz solution will help improve the situation overall. It might not be perfect, but if a new generation means we can move farther away from the router and still get great performance, then the progress is welcomed.

Qualcomm foresees many scenarios that will be able to take advantage of such a fat invisible pipe. Virtual reality ranks right up there as one of the most benefiting technologies, because content streaming right in front of people’s eyes needs to be delivered with as little latency as possible. With wires, the issue of bandwidth goes away, but no one likes having to combat wires when trying to be immersed in a virtual world.

These new 801.11ay solutions won’t only improve wireless performance for things like streaming and gaming, but also for any type of data-heavy Wi-Fi Sensing solution. That could include a camera that continually maps the room, ideal for VR. One can’t help but imagine the fun Big Brother will have with improved sensing technologies, as well.

It’s not clear when the first devices sporting Qualcomm’s new tech will become available, but the chips are available to the company’s partners today. ASUS has already given its support behind it, though it doesn’t give specific dates, either. At this point, it seems likely that we’ll see some devices using these chips at CES, and hopefully, launches won’t come long after.