The dust around 802.11ac Wave 1 has barely settled, yet in true Silicon Valley-style, the hype has already started around what's next: That would be 11ac Wave 2. Should you care? Does Wave 2 affect you today? Should you drop everything and investigate a 
Wave 2 upgrade? Will Wave 2 create world peace?
The answer: No. 802.11ac Wave 2 is very premature because the overwhelming majority of clients deployed today aren't Wave 2-capable.
And Wave 1 clients don't support Wave 2 infrastructure. So there is no advantage to deploying Wave 2 APs without the iPads or other mobile devices to take advantage of the new features.
But to accept that answer in light of the hype, it's important to understand what 802.11ac Wave 2 is, and where the limitations come into play.
What 11ac Wave 2 is not
802.11ac Wave 2 is not a new standard. It is not even a new amendment to the existing standard.
"Wave 2" is simply a marketing naming convention indicating a vendor has made incremental progress in addressing the standard's originally stated goals. It's simply not possible for any Wi-Fi vendor to implement all the features specified by a standard, or amendment, at one time. Incremental naming terms (think Generation 1, 2, 3, etc.) let vendors communicate feature milestones.
In short, it's a new phase of an existing standard's implementation (in this case still 802.11ac), not a new standard itself.
Client support lagging
Back to our earlier point about clients: The overwhelming majority of clients deployed today don't take advantage of Wave 2. And Wave 1 clients can't take advantage of Wave 2. And by most accounts, the critical mass of available Wave 2 -capable clients is not expected to arrive until at least next year.
Some fun facts:
- Less than 10% of clients deployed today support 11ac
- Only 70% of clients even support 11n – and these have been available since 2009!
When you think of the 3 - 5 year lifecycle of a client, these stats are signifiant. That school that just purchased iPads for its 1:1 program? They won't be replacing them any time soon.
Other features lagging too
Historically, many of a standard's features are optional to implement anyway, and many are never implemented at all. Case in point: the highly anticipated 4x4:4 MIMO for 802.11n. Never happened.
Also, many cool features from the APs are never implemented in clients. The primary reason? Power requirements. Battery-powered devices simply cannot have the same feature set. For proof, look at most of the current 802.11ac client devices - they are still 1x1:1 or 2x2:2 SU-MIMO.
What about 802.11ac Wave 2 infrastructure products?
You’ve heard about 160MHz channels, transmit-beamforming and MU-MIMO (Multi-user MIMO). Here's some info you should know:
- All three features are optional for access points and for clients.
- Wi-Fi certification for Wave 2 is NOT available yet, which means that any, or all three, may be required for certification.
- Using ultra-wide channels in enterprise environments is unrealistic given the total number of channels in the currently-available spectrum
- Transmit-beamforming and MU-MIMO have to be supported on access point AND on client devices for this to work.
- To take full advantage of Wave 2, access points and clients BOTH have to support Wave 2.
So what should you do?
Wait just a little while longer for the dust to settle before getting distracted with that Wave 2 migration. It takes a while for all of the 
pieces to sync, so give the industry "a minute" to catch up.
For those still weighing their choices, here are some ideas to think about today:
- Check business needs first. Most business applications do not need more than 5Mbps TCP throughput.
- Compare second generation of 802.11ac Wave 1 to first generation Wave 2 and decide.
- Remember 802.11ac Wave 1 certification exists, 802.11ac Wave 2 does not.
- Because a critical mass of 802.11ac Wave 2 clients are not likely to be available this year, there is no rush to deploy 802.11ac first generation Wave 2 infrastructure products
As Wi-Fi certification is developed and clients become available, you will have much better information on what benefits you may get in the future. Until then, enjoy the more well-rounded 802.11ac Wave 1.