Early Results from Virginia Gigabit Wireless Network Show Promise

It didn’t get much publicity outside its local area, but the recent launch of a gigabit wireless network in Blacksburg, Virginia, is an important one.

The network, launched by local technology incubator TechPad, will provide 802.11ac connectivity supporting individual connection rates as high as 1 Gbps. Blacksburg (population 42,600) is the home of Virginia Tech. “There are now three key nodes to the wireless network which are active and have coverage over about 40% of the downtown,” explained TechPad President Bob Summers. “The ultimate goal is for the majority of the citizens of this community to have access to gigabit networking high capacity and low latency.” Currently only a few end user devices support the new 802.11ac standard, including the Macbook Air and Samsung Galaxy S4, Summers said. Nevertheless he said the network already has “several users” of gigabit Wi-Fi. Others can connect to the network using traditional WiFi.

Although the network has not been operational for very long, Summers shared some early results. “The Wi-Fi space is very noisy so managing a quality outdoor public Wi-Fi system is no easy task,” he noted. “We have started to ask people to turn off their access points and use the free system which is higher performance. The more we can get to turn off the better the service for all.”