802.11ai – the one that made Wi-Fi connect fast
IEEE Std 802.11ai-2016 (second printing), Amendment 1 to the 2016 revision, tackled a problem that drives everyone nuts: **slow Wi-Fi connection times**. no named “Task Group ai” in the sources, but whoever worked on this one clearly hated waiting for a handshake. the solution? **FILS – Fast Initial Link Setup**.
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- Written by: Enrico Aderhold
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802.11af – the one that used leftover TV
IEEE Std 802.11af-2013, Amendment 5 to the 2012 revision, brought Wi-Fi into a weird and clever place: the **unused chunks of the TV spectrum**. yep – this one let Wi-Fi operate in the **TV White Spaces (TVWS)**, which are frequency bands originally reserved for analog broadcasting but sitting mostly idle. Richard H. Kennedy chaired the effort, and the result was what some called **White-Fi**.
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- Written by: Enrico Aderhold
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802.11ac – the one they called Wi-Fi 5
IEEE Std 802.11ac-2013, Amendment 4 to the 2012 revision, was the one that made **Gigabit Wi-Fi** real. no official "Task Group ac" is named, but whoever drove this forward basically gave the world what we now know as **Wi-Fi 5** – fast, efficient, and finally ready to kill off Ethernet for good (for most people anyway).
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- Written by: Enrico Aderhold
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802.11ad – the one that went millimeter-wave
IEEE Std 802.11ad-2012, Amendment 3 to the 2012 revision, was all about going big on speed – by going high on frequency. no official “Task Group ad” listed, but this was the amendment that brought **Wi-Fi to 60 GHz** – a frequency band where data moves fast and signals don’t go far. this is the one they called **WiGig**.
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- Written by: Enrico Aderhold
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802.11aa – the one that kept your streams alive
IEEE Std 802.11aa-2012, Amendment 2 to the 2012 revision, was all about making **audio and video over Wi-Fi less painful**. no official “Task Group aa” shows up in the sources, but whoever drove this one clearly knew what bad streaming looks like – and wanted to fix it.
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- Written by: Enrico Aderhold
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