Intel stops 802.11ad products and focuses on VR with WiGig

Intel will stop shipping its 802.11ad products at the end of this year without announcing successors for those parts. The company does report that it will focus on applications for virtual reality with 802.11ad.

Intel offers manufacturers the opportunity to place orders for its 802.11ad products until September 29 this year. The last deliveries will then take place on December 29, 2017. This concerns specifically the Wireless Gigabit 11000 and Tri Band Wireless-AC 18260 controllers, the Wireless Gigabit Antenna-M M100041 antenna and the Wireless Gigabit Sink W13100, writes AnandTech.

The 802.11ad standard was also known as WiGig, the name given to it by the Wireless Gigabit Alliance. That organization was dissolved in 2013, after which the Wifi Alliance was given oversight of the standard. The 802.11ad protocol uses the 60GHz spectrum for connections from 7 to 8Gbit/s up to distances of about ten meters.

WiGig has long held great promise for wireless docking stations in particular, but adoption has remained limited. Dell and Lenovo, among others, did release WiGig dockings. Earlier this year, Intel and HTC demonstrated a Vive headset that functioned wirelessly thanks to the 802.11ad implementation. Intel announced a year ago that it was working on this. Intel will continue to focus on this technology for wireless VR.