This is good news , isn ’ t it ?

It is . Most consumers don ’ t know that 802.11ac as we know it is about to undergo a massive overhaul . We ’ re not moving up to a new standard , per se , just unleashing more of the features outlined in the original standard . The roll out of 802.11ac is rather unique ; it ’ s being deployed in bitesized pieces , or waves , to help the industry adapt to the technology . Our current version of 11ac is unofficially known as Wave 1 , with the obligatory improvements to throughput over the previous standard , 802.11n . The important thing to remember is that 802.11ac Wave 1 allows an access point ( AP ) to have up to four streams of single-user Apps and clients . This is called SU-MIMO , for Single User Multiple Input Multiple Out .

The next phase of 802.11ac deployment is called Wave 2 . This promises several advantages over Wave 1 , especially increased range and less Wi- Fi interference . For the first time , Wave 2 will enable simultaneous multi-client streaming , known as Multi- User MIMO ( MU-MIMO ). Users of Wave 2 should see a noticeable bump in performance thanks to reduced network congestion , and they may even benefit from slightly better battery life for their

‘ 802.11ac as we know it is about to undergo a massive overhaul ’

mobile devices due to lower Wi-Fi power consumption .

What else is new ?

One of the most interesting aspects of Wave 2 from a technical viewpoint is the introduction of beamforming . Beamforming allows the transmitting device and MIMO receiver to work in tandem to achieve the best signal possible , using multiple antennas to transmit and receive the signal . Signal strength is improved by modulating the signal gain and phase , which helps prevent the signals from cancelling each other out at the receiver . At any given time , the AP knows where the client is , and it actually tunes its antennas so that the beam is effectively ‘ directed ’ at the client . When compared to the isotropic characteristics of our current APs , beamforming will significantly increase the transmit power in the direction of the client . It ’ s impressive stuff .

This is all very welcome news from the user ’ s perspective , however network engineers may run into a major headache – how to monitor , troubleshoot and secure their networks . If you ’ re a network engineer then you ’ ll know that most of these professionals work with packet captures to gain visibility into network health . Until now the process of capturing packets has always been linear , making it easy to identify ( and therefore troubleshoot ) specific traffic and specific clients . As APs begin taking advantage of MU-MIMO , those simultaneous conversations with multiple clients are going to be far more difficult for engineers to capture and isolate .

There are several companies like Ekahau , MetaGeek , NetScout and Savvius that provide dedicated , vendor-agnostic wireless network troubleshooting tools , but quite frankly we ’ re reaching a breaking point in the capabilities of software solutions .

So where do we go from here ?

Overcoming the inherent complexity of Wave 2 is not insurmountable , but at present there simply isn ’ t a clear path , even with open source solutions . I ’ m surprised there isn ’ t a wider community discussion about this issue , which is why I would enjoy hearing other people ’ s opinions on the matter . I believe that if affordable , industry-wide solutions are not found , the burden will likely fall on each individual equipment vendor like Cisco and Aruba to invest in troubleshooting tools . The risk with that approach is that enterprises will be forced to purchase proprietary network monitoring and troubleshooting tools from their AP and router vendors , which will likely push up costs significantly .

And this is just Wave 2 of 11ac . Wave 3 is on the horizon , followed by another new and even more complex standard , 802.11ax . Unless troubleshooting tools can keep up , wireless network engineers will have a big nightmare .

10 | February 2017