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Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ ac: yet another leap forward for Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac is a certification program from Wi-Fi Alliance®, based on the IEEE 802.11ac standard. This new MAC/PHY in the 5 GHz band further improves Wi-Fi performance in data rates, capacity, and robustness. The technology behind Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac meets the increasing demand on Wi-Fi networks to transport more multimedia traffic, which is latency-sensitive and bandwidth intensive. It is designed to operate in challenging environments that are crowded with a wide range of fixed and mobile devices, often engaged in multiple and concurrent applications.
Efficiency gains mean Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac will become the dominant MAC/PHY in the 5 GHz band
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac products are boosted by wider channels, a more efficient MAC/PHY, and more advanced beamforming capabilities.
The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac certification program
Wi-Fi Alliance launched the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac certification program in June 2013 and added a second wave of features, including Multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) in June 2016. Certification under the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac program is open to any type of client device or access point that has also passed the certification tests for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Protected Access® 2 (WPA2™), and Wi-Fi Multimedia™ (WMM®). As with all Wi-Fi Alliance certification programs, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac devices are interoperable with Wi-Fi CERTIFIED equipment from any vendor and are backward compatible with legacy Wi-Fi equipment. While Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac operates in the 5 GHz band, most Wi-Fi CERTIFIED ac devices are expected to be dual-band, supporting Wi-Fi CERTIFIED n in the 2.4 GHz band.