Apple reportedly looking to adopt 802.11ac 5G Gigabit Wi-Fi this year

Apple may be looking to incorporate support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi specification into the company’s products this year, according to a report from AppleInsider. The new standard offers three times the speed of the 802.11n standard, capable of achieving speeds of over 1 Gigabit per second. The Cupertino-based company is expected to “rapidly deploy support” of the new standard into AirPort base stations, Time Capsules, the Apple TV, notebooks and possibly mobile devices, according to the report. Even though the official standard has yet to be finalized, multiple suppliers have already announced chipsets supporting it — one of those is key Apple component maker Broadcom, which announced chips supporting the standard earlier this month at the Consumer Electronics Show. In addition to faster speeds, 802.11ac promises better networking range, improved reliability and more power efficient chips due to advances in reducing chip size and enhanced power management.

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