I recently rediscovered one of my old Wi-Fi blog posts from 2016 about future IEEE 802.11 technologies.

Reading it made me smile. Not because it was perfect, but because it wasn’t.

The post is full of typos, long sentences and enthusiastic technical rambling. Back then there was no AI helping me rewrite or polish my English. It was just me, a laptop, conference slides, whitepapers and a lot of curiosity about wireless technology.

English is not my first language — I’m Dutch — and in 2016 I was still learning how to confidently write technical content while growing as a wireless engineer. And honestly still am.

But I published it anyway.
And honestly, I’m proud that I did.

That old blog post represents something important: learning out loud. So instead of rewriting it, I decided to repost it exactly as it was written, typos included.

So instead of rewriting history, I decided to embrace it.

The mistakes stay. The excitement stays. And the “I would love to have some devices to play around with!” energy absolutely stays.

The funny thing is that parts of the post actually aged surprisingly well.

Especially the section about HEW (High Efficiency WLAN), which later became what we now know as IEEE 802.11ax. Back then the future direction of Wi-Fi was still unclear. The industry knew dense environments were becoming a serious problem, but nobody fully knew yet what the final solution would look like.

Looking back at those predictions nearly ten years later feels both nostalgic and a little surreal.

The Original 2016 Blog Post

Wi-Fi connectivity is based on a series of 802.11 PHY standards

Posted on 18 oktober 2016 by Sháron.

So we are familiar with the 802.11 a, b, g, n and the newer .ac amendments. But there are more than that.

Yes this is old news, like 10 months ago the internet was filled with it. But have you heard of them recently?
The time it took to have some 802.11ac clients and for the 802.11ac wave 2 clients…. I quess that the time for the availability of clients which are ready for the folowing amendments will be even longer..

I would love to have some devices to play around with!

802.11ad aka WiGig

Use of 60GHz by 802.11ad means very high rate, beam formed, “Room Area Networking”

Lots of spectrum (Rates >1Gb/s) about 7 GHz of spectrum is available (this varies by country) It can go very fast even with only one RF chain. It’s potential for lower cost and lower energy per bit. It uses Small wavelength (Beam forming) of 5mm wavelength and Multiple (<64) antennas can beamform for more range & less interference. It propagates like light (Room Area Networking) It is easily blocked by humans, whiteboards, books, wall & concrete, this means poor range in typical environments but this also means less interference from neighbours.

802.11ad will realistically be able to achieve PHY rates of 4.6Gb/s. WiGig Alliance Specifications (-> WFA) for Wireless Bus Extension, Wireless Display Extension and Wireless Serial Extension. The potential applications which can be Wireless docking, Wireless peripherals, Sync’n’go, HDMI replacement and other WLAN applications.

This makes our workplace of the future wire free (except maybe the power cable)

802.11ah aka HaLow WiFi

802.11ah is focused on applications below 1 GHz for lower power/rates & longer range

Smartgrid ← Primary application –Strong requirement for low power, low rate and long range–Including bridging and mesh backhaul solutions. Use cases for Video surveillance, Consumer electronics eg cameras and in the healthcare eg bio-sensors.

802.11ah is focusing on >100kb/s less than traditional 802.11) at <1km with a traditional Wi-Fi “feel”

Spectrum usage Europe: 868-868.6 MHz, Japan: 950-958 MHz, China: 314-316, 390-434, 470-510 & 779-787 MHz, Kor: 917-923.5 MHz and the USA: 902-928 MHz.
Channel width is 1,2,4,8,16 MHz (compared to 20/40 MHz in 802.11n) PHY is Based on 802.11ac.

802.11ah is introducing some interesting new functionality and features such as Support for a large number of stations, Power saving enhancements, Channel access enhancements and Throughput enhancements. It is based on the variety of new functions like: Speed frames allowing conversations to complete in a single TXOP, Relay functions to extend rage and enhance power savings. Target Wake Time tell STA they when they will need to wake up. Grouping which limits the number of stations contending at any one time. And Header overhead reductions.

802.11af defines operations in TV White Space bands

The repacking of TV bands in many countries has resulted in opportunity for new unlicensed spectrum and is often called TV White Space (TVWS) new rules are being designed to protect existing users from interference from unlicensed devices such as digital TV and wireless microphones. An amendment of 802.11, called 802.11af, has been defined to enable the use of this new spectrum.

802.11af uses a database to avoid interfering with primary users with TV & licensed microphones. This geolocation data base contains info about protected users; it will be able to authorize the use of a channel at a particular time, location & power for unlicensed operation.

Spectrum: 470-698 MHz (UHF) VHF varies by country Channel width : 6, 7, 8 MHz (vs 20/40 MHz in 802.11n) PHY: 802.11ac scaled to TV channel bandwidths

The rate of 802.11af is less than traditional 802.11 due to the narrow channels. The range is more (3.5x) than traditional 802.11 due to superior propagation of TVWS.

There was been a lot of TVWS publicity over the years and it was even called “Super Wi-Fi” in 2010. However, much of the TVWS publicity is a hype –Regulations are not yet in place in most/all countries. There is often not much available TVWS where people live. Particularly in US metro areas where 10% have 2 channels or fewer. Likely some of today’s TVWS will be allocated to cellular. In Europe, more is being used for cellular and DTTV than expected. Little certification activity due to regulatory uncertainty and it is on a country by country basis.

802.11 HEW SG

Because of the increased usage of mobile devices in dense environments indoor & Outdoor. And the Evolution of Wi-Fi applications which results in more uplink traffic and more peer to peer operations. And the need for Higher per user throughput, there is a need for another 802.11 amendment 802.11 HEW. In the following environments Enterprise, small offices, Hotspot in public places, Home/apartments on the campus and on board of Airplanes, Busses, trains and Ships.

New applications like Wireless docking, Unified communications
Display sharing, Cloud computing, Video distribution, Progressive streaming
and Real-time video analytics.

… but at this stage the technology direction and timetable for HEW is wide open

There are many technology options …

Port 11ac features like DL-MU-MIMO & 256 QAM to 2.4 GHz and UL-MU-MIMO. Interference nulling for better reuse between overlapping BSSs the use of full duplex Wi-Fi between peers and making better use of existing features

… but the technology direction & schedule are still unclear

There is No clear direction like 11a (OFDM), 11n (MIMO and aggregation), 11ac (widerbandwidth and MU-MIMO) The Goal is “More reliable, like licensed spectrum” without proposing feasible techniques to enable this It is Likely a 5-7 year effort …

Looking Back Nearly 10 Years Later

Back then, the Wi-Fi industry was looking far beyond the familiar 802.11a/b/g/n/ac generations. Several upcoming amendments sounded futuristic and exciting. Some became successful technologies, others stayed niche, and some mostly became marketing hype.

One technology that really stood out was IEEE 802.11ad, also known as WiGig. The idea sounded amazing: multi gigabit wireless speeds over 60 GHz, wireless docking stations, wireless displays and maybe even cable free desks.

Technically, it was incredibly impressive. But the problem was physics.

60 GHz behaves almost like light. It is extremely fast and directional, but also very easy to block. Humans, walls and even furniture could interrupt the signal. The technology worked, but mostly in controlled environments.

In the end, WiGig never really became mainstream consumer Wi-Fi. Instead, the industry moved toward faster traditional Wi-Fi standards, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E and practical USB-C docking solutions.

Another technology I discussed was IEEE 802.11ah, now known as HaLow. Unlike WiGig, it focused on lower frequencies, longer range and lower power consumption. At the time I imagined many consumer applications for it, but reality turned out differently.

HaLow quietly found its place mostly in IoT and industrial environments. Looking back, the design goals actually predicted the future very well: lower power usage, better propagation and support for large numbers of connected devices became increasingly important as IoT continued growing.

Then there was IEEE 802.11af, which at the time was surrounded by enormous hype. Some people even called it “Super Wi-Fi.”

The idea itself was fascinating: using unused television spectrum for wireless networking. Lower frequencies offer much better propagation and longer distances. But in reality things became complicated very quickly. Regulations differed per country, spectrum availability was inconsistent and avoiding interference with licensed users made deployments difficult.

Even back then I was already somewhat skeptical about the hype surrounding TV White Space networking. Looking back now, I think that skepticism aged pretty well.

The most interesting part of the old blog post for me now is the HEW section. HEW, or High Efficiency WLAN, eventually became IEEE 802.11ax, better known as Wi-Fi 6.

At the time, nobody fully knew what the next big Wi-Fi evolution would look like. But the industry clearly understood the problem: wireless networks were becoming crowded everywhere.

The challenge was no longer only about raw speed anymore. The real challenge became efficiency.

Reading my old notes mentioning dense environments, uplink traffic, MU-MIMO and reliability now feels incredibly familiar because those ideas became the foundation of modern Wi-Fi 6 networks.

And perhaps the funniest line in my original article was this:

“Likely a 5–7 year effort…”

Which turned out to be surprisingly accurate.

Writing Technical Blogs Before AI

Rediscovering this old post also made me realize how much technical writing has changed. Today we have AI grammar correction, AI summaries and AI writing tools everywhere, and honestly, those tools are amazing. But there is also something charming about old technical blogs written by engineers who were simply trying their best to explain technology. No polished marketing voice, no optimization strategy, just curiosity. When I wrote that post, I was still learning constantly and wanted to share what I discovered, even if my English was imperfect. AI can improve grammar, but it cannot replace genuine excitement about technology. I briefly considered rewriting the original article completely, but then I realized I would erase part of the story. So I decided to repost it exactly as it was written, typos and rambling included, because growth is more interesting when you can actually see it.