What is 802.11ay?

802.11ay is a next-generation Wi-Fi standard that defines a new physical layer for 802.11 networks to operate in the 60 GHz millimeter wave spectrum. It will be an extension to the existing 802.11ad, aimed to extend the throughput, range and use-cases including: indoor operation, out-door back-haul and short range communications.

This standard will increase the peak data rate to 100 Gb/s through supporting multiple independent data streams and higher channel bandwidth while ensuring backward compatibility and coexistence with IEEE 802.11ad. It will also extend transmission distance from the current 10 meters to as far as 300-500 meters.

It should be noted that the IEEE 802.11ay is not a new type of WLAN standard in the IEEE 802.11 set, but is the improved version of IEEE 802.11ad. It was originally expected to be released in 2017 but was delayed till 2019. Companies like Qualcomm released products based on a pre-standard version of IEEE 802.11ay and began trials of an integrated solution in mid-2019.

IEEE 801.11ay over IEEE 802.11ad

IEEE 802.11ad supports transmission rates of up to 8 Gbps using single-input single-output (SISO) wireless transmissions over a single 2.16 GHz channel. While the IEEE 802.11ay, as discussed above, supports transmission rates of up to 100 Gbps using multi-input multi-output (MIMO) wireless transmissions.