Panasonic shoves WiGig inside mobile phones, expect multi gigabit per second transfer speeds

Moving content on and off mobile phones has become easier with time. Those of us old enough to remember the days when we had to transfer files using a serial cable know how nice it is having USB on modern handsets. WiFi and Bluetooth have also made file transfers easier, but not all platforms enable wireless syncing or even file sharing; we’re looking at you iOS. Panasonic is looking to change all that by announcing that they’ve successfully managed to shrink WiGig down to something so small that it can fit inside a mobile phone. Using the 60 GHz band, which is rather high when you consider that the WiFi of today operates at either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, Panasonic expects that they’ll be able to move files around your house at “multi gigabit” per second speeds. That could mean 2 gigabits per second, that could mean 10, we don’t really know, but we’re got a hunch that WiGig is going to be incredibly short range, so much so that those of you living in homes with more than one floor might feel a little left out.

Now the important question is when are we going to be able to enjoy this ludicrous speed in our handsets? Qualcomm recently announced the AR9004TB which features supports WiFi in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and this new 60 GHz standard that’s known as 802.11ad. WiGig and 802.11ad use the same 60 GHz band, but they’re not the same technology. Both groups have support from the many of the same number of companies, so it’s anyone’s guess which one takes off. Anyway, back to Qualcomm, their chip will start sampling this summer, so we’re fairly confident that by this time next year we’re going to see the first devices using the 60 GHz band for high speed wireless transfers will come out.

Now what to do with all that bandwidth?