Wave 2 builds upon wave 1 with some very significant enhanceme.
Ac wave 2 vs wave 1.
Wave 2 can therefore achieve 1 gbit s even if the real world throughput turns.
802 11ac wave 2 provides a significant boost in performance when compared to 802 11ac wave 1 and 802 11n.
Wave 1 wireless otherwise known as the first version of 802 11ac was created largely with laptops in mind.
Look at this comparison chart from cisco.
Wave 2 of the 802 11ac standard builds upon wave 1 with the following key additional functionalities.
801 11ac the so called wave 1 arrived with much fanfare early last year and despite the hype it did not saturate our wired networks.
As such it supports all the data rates of 802 11ac wave 1.
Related 802 11 ac vs 802 11 n.
So what are the differences between wave 1 and wave 2 products and features.
What s the functional difference between 802 11ac wave 1 and wave 2.
Wave 2 products started becoming available in 2015.
It is referred as vht very high throughput specification.
Wave 2 is a superset of 802 11ac wave 1.
It uses su mimo which means that multiple streams of data can only be sent or received between one device at a time.
Wave 2 on the other hand is more suitable for the demands of mobile devices as it has multi user mimo capabilities.
Ultimately the right technology for your environment will be the technology that best supports your current needs.
This page compares 11n vs 11ac vs 11ad to provide difference between 11ac wave1 and 11ac wave2 802 11 standards.
11ac is supported by wave 1 products using 20 40 and 80 mhz channels all in the 5 ghz bandwidth.
Now wave 2 has arrived and the pundits are out again saying your wired network needs to be upgraded to 2 5 or 5 gig ethernet depending on whose technology they re pushing.
Wave 1 products have been in use in the market for about 2 5 years.
Wave 2 referring to products introduced in 2016 offers a higher throughput than legacy wave 1 products those introduced starting in 2013.
With the addition of support for 160 mhz wide channels and the modulation and coding scheme mcs rates of 802 11ac wave 2 provides new maximum phy rates based on the number of spatial streams and modulation shown in figure 1.
It is a 802 11 family of standard which is developed to deliver high data rate and it extends capability of 11a b g n standards.
The maximum physical layer theoretical rate for wave 1 is 1 3 gbit s while wave 2 can reach 2 34 gbit s.
In some cases this is combined with the older 11n in the 2 4 ghz bandwidth for compatibility with devices that can only use 11n.