Wireless Gigabit Alliance

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The Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig Alliance) was a trade group that promoted WiGig, a fast wireless technology using the unlicensed 60 GHz band to deliver multi-gigabit speeds. It formed in May 2009 to push the IEEE 802.11ad standard, releasing WiGig version 1.0 in December 2009 and version 1.1 in June 2011. Ali Sadri served as the alliance’s president.

In 2010, WiGig began collaborating with the Wi‑Fi Alliance to combine 60 GHz WiGig with traditional Wi‑Fi, aiming to extend range and penetrate walls so devices in homes and offices could stay wirelessly connected. The alliance also worked with VESA on wireless DisplayPort capabilities and with HDMI Licensing, LLC to support Wireless Display Extensions. The IEEE standard was published as 802.11ad-2012.

In January 2013, WiGig announced a merger with the Wi‑Fi Alliance, which was finalized in March 2013; WiGig technology continued under joint Wi‑Fi Alliance certification. That year, the protocol was also linked to a wireless USB effort with USB-IF. WiGig competed with WirelessHD, another 60 GHz technology.