Micro­soft Win­dows 11 nati­ve sup­port for Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on, cou­pled with Qual­comm Fast­Con­nect 4‑stream Dual Band Simul­ta­neous and broad indus­try sup­port, enables Gam­ing and PC OEMs to effort­less­ly deli­ver ether­net-like relia­bi­li­ty and latency.

Eco­sys­tem sup­port from Acer, AMD, Leno­vo, Micro­soft, Snapd­ra­gon Com­pu­te Plat­forms and Valve

OCT 5, 2021 SAN DIEGO

Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc., tog­e­ther with eco­sys­tem lea­ders span­ning key plat­forms and OEMs, is set to rede­fi­ne wire­less expec­ta­ti­ons for laten­cy-sen­si­ti­ve gam­ing, pro­duc­ti­vi­ty and lear­ning appli­ca­ti­ons on Window’s 11 PCs with Qual­comm® Fast­Con­nect™ sys­tems. Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on desi­gned using Qual­comm® 4‑Stream Dual Band Simul­ta­neous, harnes­ses mul­ti­ple Wi-Fi bands and anten­nas con­curr­ent­ly, to out­per­form tra­di­tio­nal sin­gle band con­nec­tions.  By simul­ta­neous­ly uti­li­zing the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band (or 6 GHz whe­re available), laten­cy issues in one band can be easi­ly resol­ved at a sys­tem-level both quick­ly and trans­par­ent­ly to the end user.

“Micro­soft is plea­sed to bring ‘Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on’ to the Win­dows 11 eco­sys­tem, enab­ling our Win­dows OEMs and eco­sys­tem lea­ders to deli­ver low-laten­cy per­for­mance on the latest Wi-Fi hard­ware. Games and other laten­cy-sen­si­ti­ve appli­ca­ti­ons can now levera­ge two con­cur­rent Wi-Fi con­nec­tions pro­vi­ding best-in-class user expe­ri­en­ces,” said Ian LeGrow, vice pre­si­dent, pro­gram manage­ment for win­dows plat­forms and ser­vices, Microsoft.

“More so now than ever befo­re, high-per­for­mance, robust and low-laten­cy wire­less con­nec­ti­vi­ty is the cri­ti­cal fac­tor in deli­ve­ring com­pel­ling, enga­ging and immersi­ve expe­ri­en­ces,” said Dino Bekis, vice pre­si­dent and gene­ral mana­ger, mobi­le and com­pu­te con­nec­ti­vi­ty, Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc.  “This uni­que col­la­bo­ra­ti­on with Micro­soft was essen­ti­al in rea­li­zing the pro­mi­se of Win­dows 11 with Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies’ latest Wi-Fi 6E 4‑stream Dual Band Simul­ta­neous devices.   Through focu­sed col­la­bo­ra­ti­on, we address today’s unpre­ce­den­ted wire­less chal­lenges and dra­ma­ti­cal­ly extend the­se pre­mi­um capa­bi­li­ties to the enti­re ecosystem.”

Val­ve has added initi­al sup­port for Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on to the Steam­works SDK to deli­ver low laten­cy and jit­ter-free online play for the mil­li­ons play­ing games that uti­li­ze the Steam­works SDK for net­wor­king. This includes Valve’s popu­lar online titles Dota 2 and Coun­ter-Strike: Glo­bal Offen­si­ve (CS:GO), which will now bene­fit from the impro­ved and sus­tained respon­si­ve­ness when play­ed on a Win­dows 11 gam­ing device with sup­port­ing Fast­Con­nect con­nec­ti­vi­ty systems. 

Even occa­sio­nal high laten­cy (jit­ter) events signi­fi­cant­ly dete­rio­ra­te online game play which has his­to­ri­cal­ly cau­sed PC gamers to stay tethe­red to Ether­net. Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on with Qual­comm 4‑stream Dual Band Simul­ta­neous addres­ses the need for sus­tained low laten­cy over exten­ded peri­ods of time, unleas­hing gam­ing expe­ri­en­ces with wire-class responsiveness.

“We’re see­ing con­sidera­ble reduc­tions in jit­ter and packet loss with Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on enab­led, espe­ci­al­ly when the AP is hea­vi­ly loa­ded,” said Flet­cher Dunn at Val­ve. “This is important for any online title, and espe­ci­al­ly bene­fi­ci­al for com­pe­ti­ti­ve online titles such as CS:GO and Dota 2. Games using the Steam­works SDK for net­wor­king will expe­ri­ence the­se same bene­fits with no added deve­lo­p­ment time.”

In test­ing con­duc­ted by Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc. with off-the-shelf retail Wi-Fi 6 Access Points, Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on with Qual­comm 4‑stream Dual Band Simul­ta­neous con­sis­t­ent­ly deli­ver­ed sus­tained jit­ter free wire­less game­play simi­lar to Ether­net laten­cy under the same con­di­ti­ons. Fur­ther, in head-to-head wire­less com­pa­ri­sons with Sin­gle Sta­ti­on Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on yiel­ded 4x lower laten­cy and sus­tained jit­ter-free game­play, unders­coring the imme­dia­te value to online gamers.

“Acer’s new gam­ing note­books that fea­ture Fast­Con­nect 6900 con­nec­ti­vi­ty will pro­vi­de ether­net-gra­de Wi-Fi,” said James Lin, Gene­ral Mana­ger, Note­books, IT Pro­ducts Busi­ness, Acer Inc. “With respon­si­ve­ness offe­red by the Qual­comm 4‑stream Dual Band Simul­ta­neous, gamers will be able to enjoy a low-laten­cy gam­ing expe­ri­ence wit­hout the wires.”

Bey­ond gam­ing, the­se tech­no­lo­gy advance­ments and capa­bi­li­ties pro­vi­de mate­ri­al impro­ve­ments for the ever-incre­asing demands of the enter­pri­se PC indus­try. The com­bi­na­ti­on of supe­ri­or Wi-Fi 6 fea­ture imple­men­ta­ti­on (such as Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on) and the exten­si­on of tho­se capa­bi­li­ties to new 6 GHz spec­trum (Wi-Fi 6E), are at the heart of addres­sing the expo­nen­ti­al­ly gro­wing demand for inten­se two-way data traf­fic (video calls, col­la­bo­ra­ti­on tools, remo­te manage­ment) and ensu­ring sus­tained pro­duc­ti­vi­ty whe­ther in a cen­tra­li­zed office or decen­tra­li­zed remo­te work environment. 

“We are exci­ted to work with Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies to deli­ver best-in-class con­nec­ti­vi­ty solu­ti­ons on AMD enter­pri­se plat­forms,” said Jason Ban­ta, Cor­po­ra­te Vice Pre­si­dent and Gene­ral Mana­ger, Cli­ent OEM, AMD. “Lea­der­ship con­nec­ti­vi­ty per­for­mance is cri­ti­cal, and tog­e­ther, Fast­Con­nect, Micro­soft Win­dows and AMD rai­se the bar for speed, capa­ci­ty and laten­cy per­for­mance to bring excep­tio­nal hybrid-work expe­ri­en­ces to a deman­ding workforce.”

“Working, lear­ning, col­la­bo­ra­ting have all beco­me dis­tri­bu­ted bey­ond what we could have ima­gi­ned even two years ago, and con­nec­ti­vi­ty must rise to the occa­si­on to deli­ver the speed, capa­ci­ty and relia­ble low laten­cy nee­ded to hand­le modern com­pu­ting appli­ca­ti­ons and envi­ron­ments. Wi-Fi Dual Sta­ti­on with Qual­comm 4‑stream Dual Band Simul­ta­neous, tog­e­ther with 6 GHz ope­ra­ti­on (Wi-Fi 6E) have enorm­ous poten­ti­al, and we applaud all invol­ved in brin­ging the­se advan­ced wire­less tech­no­lo­gies to frui­ti­on.  Leno­vo is com­mit­ted to deli­ve­ring game-chan­ging tech­no­lo­gy solu­ti­ons and we look for­ward to harnes­sing the­se next gen fea­tures for a bet­ter cus­to­mer expe­ri­ence in the future.” Luis Her­nan­dez, vice pre­si­dent, PC and Smart Solu­ti­ons Deve­lo­p­ment, Leno­vo Intel­li­gent Devices Group.

 

For more infor­ma­ti­on about Fast­Con­nect plea­se visit https://www.qualcomm.com/products/wi-fi/fastconnect.

About Qual­comm
Qual­comm is the world’s lea­ding wire­less tech­no­lo­gy inno­va­tor and the dri­ving force behind the deve­lo­p­ment, launch, and expan­si­on of 5G.  When we con­nec­ted the pho­ne to the inter­net, the mobi­le revo­lu­ti­on was born.  Today, our foun­da­tio­nal tech­no­lo­gies enable the mobi­le eco­sys­tem and are found in every 3G, 4G and 5G smart­phone. We bring the bene­fits of mobi­le to new indus­tries, inclu­ding auto­mo­ti­ve, the inter­net of things, and com­pu­ting, and are lea­ding the way to a world whe­re ever­y­thing and ever­yo­ne can com­mu­ni­ca­te and inter­act seamlessly.

Qual­comm Incor­po­ra­ted includes our licen­sing busi­ness, QTL, and the vast majo­ri­ty of our patent port­fo­lio. Qual­comm Tech­no­lo­gies, Inc., a sub­si­dia­ry of Qual­comm Incor­po­ra­ted, ope­ra­tes, along with its sub­si­dia­ries, sub­stan­ti­al­ly all of our engi­nee­ring, rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment func­tions, and sub­stan­ti­al­ly all of our pro­ducts and ser­vices busi­nesses, inclu­ding our QCT semi­con­duc­tor business.