The evolution of speed: Moore’s Law still applies to Wi-Fi

by Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman

The evolution of Wi-Fi speed is astounding and shows no signs of abating.

A number of years ago a friend of mine – veteran consultant Francis McInerney from North River Ventures – showed me a graph that opened my eyes to the essence of Wi-Fi technology probably for the first time. The chart – on log axes – basically showed how the age of traditional telecoms was essentially over and that we’re now in the Age of Wi-Fi. Why? Basically because only low-cost, high-performance Wi-Fi can keep up with the continuous free fall in the cost of information.

Now there’s fresh evidence that the same ‘free fall’ (exponential increase in speed while costs stay linear) is still happening in the world of Wi-Fi. The famous Moore’s Law says a computer’s number of transistors doubles every two years. Plotting this is of course leads to a straight line on a log scale. Interestingly, the same trajectory is valid for Wi-Fi, says Broadcom’s Director, Wireless Connectivity Division, Gabriel Desjardins.

“I started at Broadcom Inc. in 2010, and since then, I’ve watched the Samsung Galaxy phone series drive biennial throughput doubling, and lead the world from 802.11g through Wi-Fi 6E. I am sure that Moore’s Law seemed daunting at the time, and it was no different for Wi-Fi. When I looked at the first Galaxy S and its 54 Mbps, there was no way I could have imagined that barely a decade later, I’d have a phone that would exceed 2 Gigabit speeds,” Gabriel Desjardins says.

The plot above – produced by Gabriel – shows the throughput capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy phone series in the course of the past 10 years: At times ahead – but in general right along side Moore’s famous doubling for every two years trajectory. Will future Wi-Fi 7 with 320 MHz channels keep the drive alive?

We think yes.

/Claus.