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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/04/wifi_wigig_alliances_to_merge/

Wi-Fi, WiGig Alliances to wed, breed 60GHz progeny

Beyond mere Wi-Fi into a hella-fast world of wireless wedlock

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Hardware, 4th January 2013 01:08 GMT

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The Wi-Fi Alliance [1] and the Wireless Gigabit Alliance [2] have announced that they will merge, combining their efforts to promote and set standards for 60GHz wireless technology

"Combining the expertise of Wi-Fi Alliance and WiGig Alliance will deliver a terrific user experience with 60GHz solutions," Wi-Fi Alliance president and CEO Edgar Figueroa said in a statement [3], "and will help ensure that a full range of interoperable WiGig solutions reaches the market as quickly as possible."

This is not a whirlwind romance resulting in a love-blinded Vegas elopement. The two alliances have been working closely together in a two-year, 60GHz courtship, with WiGig focusing on the technology specifications and Wi-Fi on interoperability certifications.

Now it appears that they both find it wise to officially shack up, with the legal imprimatur being not a marriage license but a formal Memorandum of Understanding that will merge the Wireless Gigabit Alliance into the Wi-Fi Alliance.

How cute – they already have the same last name, so they can both bring their monogrammed bathtowels into their new home.

The 60GHz WiGig tech [4] is not to be confused with the emerging "around-one gigabit-per-second" 802.11ac [5] WiFi standard that Broadcom calls "5G WiFi [6]". WiGig is not a replacement for 802.11ac, but rather a supplement that can go beyond mere wireless networking into such speedy-needy usage models as fully wireless bus extension, high-speed peripheral and storage connectivity, secure digital I/O (SDIO [7]), and the like.

From where we sit, the consummation of this love affair is coming at a good time for WiGig. As CEO of WiGig pioneer Wilocity [8] and founding member of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance Tal Tamir told us in an email, "With WiGig-based tri-band products starting to emerge in 2013, we are thrilled to leverage the experience of the Wi-Fi Alliance in creating wireless markets and extending their vision to the 60GHz band."

The Reg agrees with Tamir when he says, "This is a great step forward for WiGig products and for the wireless industry as a whole."

That is, of course, if the marriage is a successful one. As some of us have learned through painful experience, sometimes it's better to maintain separate residences – not to mention identities.

But that guarded cynicism is for another day. For now, we'll celebrate Thursday's union of the Wi-Fi Alliance and WiGig Alliance in holy Memorandum of Understandimony. ®