Ultimately the right technology for your environment will be the technology that best supports your current needs.
Ac wave 2 vs 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.
This page compares 11n vs 11ac vs 11ad to provide difference between 11ac wave1 and 11ac wave2 802 11 standards.
Wave 2 is a superset of 802 11ac wave 1.
Wave 2 referring to products introduced in 2016 offers a higher throughput than legacy wave 1 products those introduced starting in 2013.
Wave 2 of the 802 11ac standard builds upon wave 1 with the following key additional functionalities.
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.
Wave 2 products started becoming available in 2015.
Look at this comparison chart from cisco.
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.
Whether you re implementing wave 1 or wave 2 the bottom line is that 802 11ac of any generation offers considerable improvements over older legacy products.
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.
Higher speed with up to 2 3 gbps 1 7 gbps in the 5 ghz range multi user multiple input multiple output mu mimo support for better use of frequency.
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.
Some of key benefits of wave 2.
802 11ac wave 2 provides a significant boost in performance when compared to 802 11ac wave 1 and 802 11n.
It is referred as vht very high throughput specification.
11ac is supported by wave 1 products using 20 40 and 80 mhz channels all in the 5 ghz bandwidth.
Wave 1 wireless otherwise known as the first version of 802 11ac was created largely with laptops in mind.
Wave 2 can therefore achieve 1 gbit s even if the real world throughput turns.
As such it supports all the data rates of 802 11ac wave 1.
Wave 2 on the other hand is more suitable for the demands of mobile devices as it has multi user mimo capabilities.
So what are the differences between wave 1 and wave 2 products and features.
Wave 2 builds upon wave 1 with some very significant enhanceme.
Wave 1 products have been in use in the market for about 2 5 years.