First WiGig dock eliminates cord clutter on your desk WiGig laptop is paired with Dell wireless dock, but routers will have to wait.

The Dell Latitude 6430u Ultrabook and its wireless dock

Dell

Dell has unveiled a wireless dock that can handle speeds of up to 4.6Gbps, allowing wireless connections from a laptop to USB storage devices and one or two monitors.

This is the first usable product based on WiGig (wireless gigabit, aka 802.11ad), which uses the 60GHz band to allow short-range transmissions far more powerful than standard Wi-Fi on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. As we noted last month in our overview of WiGig, the Dell Lattitude 6430u Ultrabook was the first product to include a WiGig chip, but it had no other WiGig products to connect to. Dell filled that gap this week with the Dell Wireless Dock D5000. The dock is tri-band, meaning it supports 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 60GHz transmissions.

"Designed for use in offices, meeting rooms and classrooms, the Dell Wireless Dock offers quick and easy connectivity to displays, projectors, networks, speakers and other peripherals for unparalleled connectivity and convenience," Dell's announcement said. "The new dock supports up to two external displays with both DisplayPort and HDMI, features ample peripheral connectivity via three USB 3.0 ports and facilitates easy collaboration with a front Audio In/Out port for voice over IP at speeds of up to 4.6 gigabits per second. The Dell Wireless Dock can also be easily managed connect with the updated Dell Connection Manager that now supports both WiGig and Wireless LAN settings."

 Dell Wireless Dock.

Dell

Clear out the cord clutter.

The Ultrabook and dock include a chip from WiGig silicon vendor Wilocity and Qualcomm Atheros. WiGig is based on the new Wi-Fi standard 802.11ad, which theoretically allows speeds of up to 7Gbps, perfect for large file transfers and video streaming. At the Consumer Electronics Show last month, Wilocity demonstrated WiGig-enabled laptops and tablets powering HD monitors, and ultra fast file transfers between computers and WiGig-enabled docks and routers.

Dell sells the Wireless Dock by itself for $270, or for $187 when added to a purchase of a Dell Latitude 6430u. Adding the dock may delay ship times.

While WiGig is limited today to this one laptop/dock pair, those pushing WiGig believe it will expand over the course of this year and especially in 2014. The Wi-Fi Alliance group is expected to begin certifying 802.11ad products at the end of 2013, providing greater assurance that products from different vendors will be able to work together. Wilocity is soon coming out with a second generation of its chip that will be able to power wireless routers.

60GHz transmissions are easily blocked by walls, but the future routers should be able to support traditional Wi-Fi standards to let devices fall back to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands when people roam around their homes or offices. Wilocity's second-generation chip will also support 802.11ac on the 5GHz band, which is pretty fast itself.