Worldwide adoption of the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard is beginning to show signs of growth as more companies look to upgrade to a faster wireless connection.
New figures from ABI research show global shipments of 802.11ac access points accounting for eight per cent of the total market for such devices, with Cisco proving to be the largest enterprise vendor.
As for the consumer Wi-Fi shipment market, finance.yahoo.com says D-Link topped the table with a 12.7 per cent share in the third quarter of 2013.
ABI backed 802.11ac to grow immensely over the next 12 months and for its devices to account for 45 per cent of all equipment shipped by 2014, leaving it on the cusp of gaining a majority share.
This comes at a crucial time for the Wi-Fi customer premises equipment market, which surpassed 139.1 million devices over last year. As reported by fiercewireless.com, this reveals the demand for products such as wireless access points, routers and gateways.
Shipments of access points rose 20 per cent year on year to hit 13.2 million in 2013 as the 802.11ac standard took a six per cent share of the enterprise market.
Though rather than completely alienating the 802.11n standard after making the step up, ABI said the lion’s share of 802.11ac equipment boasted dual-band access for supporting devices with this standard.
