Broadcom is expected to show off silicon that offers 1.8 gigabit per second Wi-Fi at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. The technology will help prepare home networks for the era of whole-home video streaming. To promote the chips, which will use the 802.11ac standard, Broadcom has highjacked the G used by cellular networks, calling the new standard 5G Wi-Fi.

Terminology aside, here’s why this latest iteration of Wi-Fi is so cool:

1. It’s fast. The standard can deliver up to 3.6 Gbps around the home, although initial chips offer 1.8 Gbps. The current top-of-the-line Wi-Fi chips (802.11n) top out at 600 Mbps.
2. It’s designed for video. The technology uses the 5 gigaherz band as opposed to the 2.4 gigaherz band. The gigahertz band has wider channels to deliver more capacity and competes with fewer other wireless devices, which means the channels can carry more data such as fat high-definition and maybe even 3-D video streams.
3. It’s designed for multiple devices and concurrent streams. Those wider channels also mean a home can support more devices trying to send lots of data, such as sending multiple, concurrent HD video streams around the home, while someone else plays a game or video conferences. So while you might not think you need a gigabit home network without a gigabit pipe leading to your home, if you’re streaming cached content from a hard drive or another device, this helps.
4. It’s more power efficient. The wider channels allow for more data to travel over the network, which means downloads take less time. At that point the radio powers down to save on battery life or power. This doesn’t help when streaming, but would be good for keeping devices and hard drives synced.
5. It goes the distance. The physics of transmitting data using airwaves over distances and through certain materials doesn’t change, but because the standard can deliver faster speeds from the router, folks will get proportionately faster speeds as they move away from the router in their homes and offices. It also uses beamforming technology (basically it compresses the signal like a laser compresses light to make it more powerful) to better pass through buildings, especially through those made of concrete. The end result is a better signal even if it must pass through a few walls — and a decent end-user experience.

Broadcom expects to start shipping chips in the middle of this year and appearing in a wide variety of products from phones and laptops to set-top-boxes and home routers that will ship in the second half of the year. In November Quantenna, a chipmaker startup that has raised more than million, announced its own 802.11 ac chips, and in September I spoke with Craig Barratt, president of Qualcomm Atheros about that chipmaker’s vision for the next generation of Wi-Fi.

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The next generation of navigation chips inside mobile phones could take advantage of Russian satellites orbiting the globe, in addition to the more familiar GPS systems. Qualcomm, Broadcom and ST-Ericsson are building GPS chips with support for Russia’s Glonass satellite system. According to chip analysts at The Linley Group:

A new feature in GPS chips is Glonass support. Glonass is the Russian equivalent of GPS, consisting of a separate set of satellites that are “visible” from around the world. By tuning into both GPS and Glonass satellites at the same time, a GPS chip can get a position fix more quickly and accurately. This approach is most useful in urban canyons, where tall buildings can block line-of-sight reception from satellites.

It’s not entirely clear what’s behind the widescale adoption of Glonass support — although the Russian government now mandates such dual support, which may have forced the issue — but it has the potential to benefit consumers. More accurate location tracking has become enormously important to advertising, services and even public safety on cell phones and other devices. Already, many phones and applications use a combination of GPS and Wi-Fi, such as that offered by Skyhook Wireless, to figure out where a subscriber is at any time.

Still, device makers may not incorporate the Glonass-capable chips into their devices sold outside of Russia, and they may not subscribe to the databases they would need in order to determine where a phone is using the system. Glonass has a storied history going back decades, but the satellite system fell into disrepair. A few years ago Russia determined it wanted to become a satellite power again and promised to launch worldwide coverage for its Glonass system.

The project has a storied history detailed in this BBC article, which suggests that the new Glonass constellation of satellites was a major publicity stunt aimed at fostering the perception that Russia had developed a viable competitor to the U.S.-sponsored GPS system when, in fact, its performance is subpar. But now, almost a year after that article was written, new satellites have launched, and it appears that major chip vendors are willing to support Glonass, which means it’s up to device makers and services to launch Russia’s satellites into global prominence.

Image courtesy of NASA.

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Next week, the mobile-obsessed hordes will descend on Barcelona for the hottest tech show on Earth: the Mobile World Congress (if you thought it was the Consumer Electronics Show you’re living in the early aughts, my friend). For those, like me, who are staying behind and are worried about being overwhelmed, here are the five themes worth paying attention to during the four days of the show. Don’t worry; if we missed one, we’ll let you know as soon as we see it.

Mobile Networks Meet the Cloud. All the big gear makers from Alcatel-Lucent to Nokia Siemens Networks will have something to show mobile operators that will allow them to deploy smaller base stations and more flexible networks. Big vendors and startups are all trying to help operators deal with a deluge of traffic and the need for more network components, from Wi-Fi access points to pico and femtocells. As operators support more networks and deploy more base stations, they’ll need more software to manage and adjust them without the aid of costly network engineers. Expect startups pitching self-optimizing networks, real-time traffic information, technology to manage interference and other products that will help operators automate their networks to appear in droves.

Dual-Core is the Only Core. Just this week, Qualcomm, Broadcom and Texas Instruments all announced new application processors that take the idea of a single-core, 1-GHz smartphone chip and double (or in the case of TI’s planned OMAP 5 product, quadruple) it. We’ve been excited about dual-core chips for years, but they are just now hitting the market in consumer phones and tablets. Look for demonstrations of the chips, and also for the new types of devices and applications they can power. Given that most people are toting smartphones with single cores today, you might also be looking to replace your existing phone. It’s going to look pretty slow after Barcelona’s demonstrations.

The Overwhelming Onslaught of Video. A huge component of mobile traffic will be video as consumers download YouTube  videos, chat with friends via FaceTime or merely play precious moments from their Facebook pages on their handsets. Allot Communications recently said streaming video comprises 37 percent of network traffic today and Cisco said it would be 66 percent of traffic by 2015. Part of the issue is more people turning to video on their handsets, but the other component is a rise in tablets which makes watching video so much better while on the go. Vendors such as Bytemobile will show off new gear to help operators optimize video on their networks and reduce costs, while startups such as Skype and Facebook might introduce new products that only exacerbate the problem.

Tune in to See if Microsoft Gets Mobile. After Nokia turned to Microsoft today to save its “burning platform,” the software giant has a chance to team up with a great handset maker to give its Windows Phone 7 operating system a draw. Some reviewers actually liked Windows Phone 7 when it launched last year, but when it hit the market, the response from consumers was decidedly less enthusiastic. And while operators might long for alternatives to the Android/Apple juggernauts, it’s unclear if Microsoft and Nokia will convince operators, developers and consumers that the combined platforms are a good option. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, will give a keynote at Mobile World Congress, and observers will also be looking for hot apps and good devices that buy into the Redmond ecosystem. Also pay attention to see if Microsoft’s decision to port its Windows franchise to the ARM architecture generates any exciting tablet or even laptop news.

Everyone Hops on the Mobile Payments Bandwagon … Again. Mobile payments have been a favorite topic in the industry for years, but this year may prove to be a turning point as more players jump on to Near Field Communications, direct carrier billing and other payment options. Mobile World Congress has dedicated a conference track to mobile money, with an assortment of carrier, financial institutions, payment providers and start-ups all scheduled to talk about the industry. While Square’s Jack Dorsey is a scheduled keynote speaker, it appears much of the talk will revolve around NFC deployments, trials and updates. Google’s outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt is scheduled to keynote and will likely talk about Android’s support for NFC among other things. But expect a lot of other news from other players looking to finally make some money off mobile payments.

Additional reporting by Ryan Kim.

Image courtesy of Flickr user andy_c

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Oh, component breakdowns. How we love ‘em. Let’s talk about the iPad.

The $499 iPad breaks-down something like this:

• Touchscreen – $95
• Apple A4 CPU – $26.80
• 16GB flash storage – $29.50
• Aluminum rear panel – $26.80
• Broadcom Bluetooth, WiFi chip – $8.05
• TI controller chip – $1.80
• Ciruss Logic audio chip – $1.2

All that, combined with other pieces of hardware and bezel parts add up to $260 per iPad. That’s slightly more than iSuppli’s preliminary $229 estimate reported back in early February. The 32GB and 64GB chips of course cost more with the 32GB estimated at $59 and the 64GB chip at $118.

Don’t put too much weight into this estimate as it only accounts to for the cost of the hardware and not the time and resources that went into developing and marketing the iPad. We’ve heard that Apple has been toiling away at this thing for years, but the company doesn’t seem to have any issues selling it so they shouldn’t have an issue making it back.