Samsung Electronics announced it has successfully achieved a speed breakthrough in Wi-Fi technology, saying it now has developed "60GHz Wi-Fi technology, a five-fold increase from 866Mbps, or 108MB per second," according to its released statement.
"Samsung has successfully overcome the barriers to the commercialization of 60GHz millimeter-wave band Wi-Fi technology, and looks forward to commercializing this breakthrough technology," said Kim Chang Yong, Head of DMC R&D Center of Samsung Electronics. "New and innovative changes await Samsung's next-generation devices, while new possibilities have been opened up for the future development of Wi-Fi technology."
Samsung said in its statement that previous challenges that hindered commercial adaptation of 60GHz Wi-Fi speeds have been due to "millimeter waves that travel by line-of-sight has weak penetration properties and is susceptible to path loss, resulting in poor signal and data performance."
"By leveraging millimeter-wave circuit design and high performance modem technologies and by developing wide-coverage beam-forming antenna, Samsung was able to successfully achieve the highest quality, commercially viable 60GHz Wi-Fi technology."
However, Simon Sharwood, technology writer for The Register, writes that although Samsung is trying to present a scenario where 1GB videos can be transferred between devices in less than three seconds, or where high-definition movies can be streamed from mobile to TV without delay in real time, it remains to be seen whether or not the entire system works well.
"Just how long that gigabyte takes to download to a device on a typical broadband connection - DSL remains the world's dominant broadband medium - isn't discussed," Sharwood writes.
News of this breakthrough arrived as Samsung prepares to launch new products against Apple, as well as China-based companies. Samsung's quarterly profits dived 60 percent due to slow smartphone sales, reports Businessweek.
With this development, Samsung is expected to apply its 60GHz Wi-Fi technology in a variety of multimedia devices, medical and fitness products, as well as telecommunication equipment.