The WiFi Alliance today announced an expansion of its WiFi Certified ac program in an attempt to boost the speed and capacity of WiFi routers and other WiFi-equipped devices. Specifically, devices won't receive WiFi Certified ac status unless they make improvements to several core functions. First on the list is MU-MIMO, which lets routers multitask and send data to multiple devices at a time. This improves throughput and efficiency in any given network. Second, WiFi Certified ac now supports four spatial streams, up from three, to connect to more devices. Third, the certification program increases the maximum channel bandwidth from 80 MHz to 160 MHz for doubling speeds. Last, WiFi Certified ac extends support for more channels in the 5 GHz band, which should allow routers make more efficient use of the spectrum. Select chips from Broadcom, Marvell, MediaTek, Qualcomm, and Quantenna have already been approved for WiFi Certified ac and can be used to test the technology in device designs. The WiFi Alliance expects WiFi Certified ac products to proliferate over the next five years.


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