IEEE 802.11ac-2013

Wi-Fi generations
Gen.[1] IEEE
standard 		Adopt. Link rate
(Mbit/s) 		2.4 GHz 5 GHz 6 GHz
802.11 1997 1–2
802.11b 1999 1–11
802.11a 1999 6–54
802.11g 2003
Wi-Fi 4 802.11n 2009 6.5–600
Wi-Fi 5 2013 6.5–6,933 [a]
Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax 2021 0.4–9,608
Wi-Fi 6E[b]
Wi-Fi 7 802.11be 2024 0.4–23,059
Wi-Fi 8[2][3] 802.11bn 100,000[4]

IEEE 802.11ac-2013 or 802.11ac is a wireless networking standard in the IEEE 802.11 set of protocols (which is part of the Wi-Fi networking family), providing high-throughput wireless local area networks (WLANs) on the 5 GHz band.[c] The standard has been retroactively labelled as Wi-Fi 5 by Wi-Fi Alliance.[5][6]

The specification has multi-station throughput of at least 1.1 gigabit per second (1.1 Gbit/s) and single-link throughput of at least 500 megabits per second (0.5 Gbit/s).[7] This is accomplished by extending the air-interface concepts embraced by 802.11n: wider RF bandwidth (up to 160 MHz), more MIMO spatial streams (up to eight), downlink multi-user MIMO (up to four clients), and high-density modulation (up to 256-QAM).[8][9]

The Wi-Fi Alliance separated the introduction of 802.11ac wireless products into two phases ("waves"), named "Wave 1" and "Wave 2".[10][11] From mid-2013, the alliance started certifying Wave 1 802.11ac products shipped by manufacturers, based on the IEEE 802.11ac Draft 3.0 (the IEEE standard was not finalized until later that year).[12] Subsequently in 2016, Wi-Fi Alliance introduced the Wave 2 certification, which includes additional features like MU-MIMO (downlink only), 160 MHz channel width support, support for more 5 GHz channels, and four spatial streams (with four antennas; compared to three in Wave 1 and 802.11n, and eight in IEEE's 802.11ax specification).[13] It meant Wave 2 products would have higher bandwidth and capacity than Wave 1 products.[14]

  1. ^ "The Evolution of Wi-Fi Technology and Standards". IEEE. 2023-05-16. Retrieved 2025-08-07.
  2. ^ Reshef, Ehud; Cordeiro, Carlos (2023). "Future Directions for Wi-Fi 8 and Beyond". IEEE Communications Magazine. 60 (10). IEEE: 50–55. doi:10.1109/MCOM.003.2200037.
  3. ^ Giordano, Lorenzo; Geraci, Giovanni; Carrascosa, Marc; Bellalta, Boris (November 21, 2023). "What Will Wi-Fi 8 Be? A Primer on IEEE 802.11bn Ultra High Reliability". IEEE Communications Magazine. 62 (8): 126. arXiv:2303.10442. Bibcode:2024IComM..62h.126G. doi:10.1109/MCOM.001.2300728.
  4. ^ Geraci, Giovanni; Meneghello, Francesca; Wilhelmi, Francesc; Lopez-Perez, David; Val, Iñaki; Lorenzo Galati Giordano; Cordeiro, Carlos; Ghosh, Monisha; Knightly, Edward; Bellalta, Boris (2025). "Wi-Fi: Twenty-Five Years and Counting". arXiv:2507.09613 [cs.NI].
  5. ^ "Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6".
  6. ^ Shankland, Stephen (2018-10-03). "Here Come Wi-Fi 4, 5 and 6 in Plan to Simplify 802.11 Networking Names – The Wi-Fi Alliance Wants to Make Wireless Networks Easier to Understand and Recognize". CNET. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
  7. ^ Van Nee, Richard (2011). "Breaking the Gigabit-per-second barrier with 802.11ac". IEEE Wireless Communications Magazine.
  8. ^ Kassner, Michael (2013-06-18). "Cheat Sheet: What You Need to Know about 802.11ac". TechRepublic. Retrieved 2013-06-20.
  9. ^ "802.11ac: A Survival Guide". Chimera.labs.oreilly.com. Archived from the original on 2017-07-03. Retrieved 2014-04-17.
  10. ^ "802.11AC WAVE 2 A XIRRUS WHITE PAPER" (PDF).
  11. ^ "802.11ac Wi-Fi Part 2: Wave 1 and Wave 2 Products".
  12. ^ "802.11ac: The Fifth Generation of Wi-Fi Technical White Paper" (PDF). Cisco. March 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-04-18. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  13. ^ "Wi-Fi Alliance launches 802.11ac Wave 2 certification". RCR Wireless. 29 June 2016.
  14. ^ "6 things you need to know about 802.11ac Wave 2". techrepublic.com. 2016-07-13. Retrieved 2018-07-26.


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