The evolution of Wi-Fi hotspots

Public Wi-Fi hotspots are one of the crucial elements for flawless communication and affordable Internet. In fact, there are over 9 million hotspots across the United States available for anyone who wants to explore the Internet. However, a new problem has emerged – the vast majority of Wi-Fi hotspots rely on 2.4 GHz band frequency, which is somewhat obsolete. Even though some people may think that it’s more than enough, there are several issues, to say the least.

General difference between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands

The main problem with the 2.4 GHz band is that it gets choked due to heavy usage in large markets. The overloaded hotspots won’t provide optimal speeds and stability. As you can imagine, the consequences are significant – people simply stop using the free Wi-Fi and start spending data provided by their ISP (which in most cases isn’t free.)

On the other hand, 5 GHz band allows better Internet speed, less congestion, and it accepts more users at once. It means that it’s much harder to clog the system. Also, the modern devices such as smartphones, tablets, and other are already optimized for the 5 GHz network, meaning you won’t have to upgrade the device itself to get the advantage of using a better connection.

The expectations for the future

The future of the modern technology is bright. The constant evolution of it brings innovative tech solutions, greater Internet speeds, and better capacity. As far as the Wi-Fi goes, as soon as we transfer to the 5GHz band, we’ll see a clear improvement in many fields.

One of the goals for the future is complete coverage. Although we probably won’t be able to connect to a Wi-Fi network on mountain tops, a wide coverage is always a good idea. The idea of having free hotspots everywhere isn’t new, but we didn’t have the necessary technology a few years back. Thanks to the modern era, we’ll have wireless hotspots on every corner in major cities. It hasn’t become a standard yet, but we’re very close to the point in which we’ll simply expect a wireless connection everywhere.

One of the newest technologies is the IEEE 802.11ac wireless standard, which was developed in late 2013. This process provides Internet speeds of at least one gigabit per second in multi-station throughput and 500mb/s in a single-link throughput while using the 5 GHz frequency.

The benefits of this new standard are amazing. Even if we don’t mention anything but the speed increase, it’s still impressive. For example, with the 802.11ac standard, you can simultaneously stream multiple HD videos without worrying about buffering speeds. Also, university professors, government staff, or anyone else who’s using wireless technology on a regular basis won’t have to think about the quality or speed of the connection.

With the implementation of 3.0 USB technologies, the advantages of high-speed Wi-Fi have expanded even more. You can now connect your router to the local storage and stream videos, use cloud services, and create FTP servers. All of this wasn’t possible with the 2.0 USB technology due to the lack of transfer speed.