It’s time to upgrade your wireless infrastructure.
On Tuesday 9 September, Apple announced the much-anticipated iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones. While the iPhone 5 has caused many IT Managers to rethink their wireless networks to support ubiquitous 5GHz, the new iPhone 6’s are changing the game again. Given the broad reach of Apple products in today’s marketplace, we expect these new products to have an impact on Wi-Fi networks everywhere for several reasons.
- 802.11ac. The iPhone 6 is the first Apple smartphone to support the 11ac standard. We expect the iPhone 6 to create a significant tipping point for 11ac adoption given the sheer volume of devices that will ship in the coming months and show up on BYOD networks everywhere. Customers buying today need to consider 11ac if they want their network to have a 5+ year lifespan.
- AirDrop. This capability allows iPhones, iPads, etc. to create peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connections with Mac laptops to move data. iOS 8 marks the first time Macs and mobile devices can connect in this manner and we anticipate greater usage of AirDrop as users offload data from their mobile devices. In turn, expect to see increased ad hoc Wi-Fi connections that can create channel planning and interference challenges within Wi-Fi networks.
- Larger screens. The iPhone’s form factor is larger with this next generation and as screen sizes grow, we expect to see a rise in the amount of streaming media being consumed. Similar to the fact iPads consume significantly more content and network bandwidth than iPhones on average given their larger form factor, the new larger iPhones will be used more for media and replace tablet usage in some cases.
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