Wi-Fi giant Cisco Systems has urged companies in the sector to get behind its campaign to force out older standards of wireless connectivity in order to provide more efficient networks.
According to pcworld.com, the group is claiming that standards like the once-popular 802.11b, which dates back as early as 1999, aren’t nearly as fast as some of the connections being sold in present day and could be holding back their more efficient counterparts.
When some of the newer Wi-Fi standards first entered the market, they didn’t replace the ones they were outperforming. All of the newer standards are required to support all of the technology assisted by the older connections, which means they have to be configured to connect to devices that date as far back as the late 1990s.
As the newer access points can connect to older devices anyway, two Cisco engineers have mooted the idea of scrapping some of the older standards and making more use of bands like the 2.4GHz band
According to techworld.com, this particular standard will not affect the 5GHz band, which is currently the most modern form of Wi-Fi.
Cisco believes another problem is that newer versions of Wi-Fi are also required to send network packets out at speeds as slow as 1-2Mbps to support old technology. This means modern Wi-Fi traffic cannot reach its speed potential as the slower the wireless data traffic is, the longer it will occupy the channel – resulting in sluggish speeds for web users.
