One Gigabit-per-second Wi-Fi is coming to market with Cisco Systems’ products for hospitals, universities, law firms and other organizations. The portfolio is aimed supporting high-bandwidth services like HD streaming video, Web conferencing, and data backup and transfers within the enterprise.

The growing number of employee-owned mobile devices and the expansion of network throughput is driving unprecedented usage levels of such services, Cisco said—and enter the new portfolio.

"We are continuing our leadership in the market with this rollout of 802.11ac offerings and are positioned to change the landscape for enterprise-class network infrastructure,” said Chris Spain, vice president of Product Marketing for the Wireless Networking Group at Cisco. “We are in a new era of the digital lifestyle, and our customers are looking to increase employee productivity for those working on their mobile devices, by supporting the higher bandwidth applications popular amongst these users. Cisco's new 802.11ac modules will support devices now operating on this standard while more effectively utilizing spectrum in the workplace."

Based on the 802.11ac standard, the Wave 1 Module for the Cisco Aironet 3600 Series supports Wi-Fi speeds of up to 1.3Gbps, operating in the 5GHz range. Cisco also said that its Cisco Aironet 3600 Series field upgrade module to support the second part of the 802.11ac standard Wave 2, which includes MU-MIMO for switchlike performance in a wireless environment and higher bandwidth support via additional spatial streams and channels.

The Methodist Hospital System and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) are early adopters of Cisco's 802.11ac products. Methodist is Houston's third largest health system, and UNSW is a leading Australian research and teaching university. Both organizations wanted to accommodate mobile devices in greater quantity and provide them with better performance.

"Our team is dedicated to finding ways to use technology to improve staff operations and create an efficient workflow to treat patients faster, all the while decreasing costs,” added Armand Stansel, director of IT Infrastructure services at the Methodist Hospital System. “Implementing a WLAN infrastructure has provided us with reliable and predictable wireless connectivity. We're looking ahead to upgrade to 802.11ac to advance the use of mobile devices in our environment, including video collaboration for viewing remote operations, real-time medical imaging and medical device connectivity in the hospital. Now, it is easier to manage the multiple mobile devices used by staff, patients and doctors, so we can stay focused on enriching our healthcare operations and patient care."