There have been dozens of technical standards that have come and gone over the years, superseded by better, faster, more reliable and more sophisticated technologies, rendering their predecessors obsolete. However, in the tech world, one of the most enduring connectivity standards has been USB.

Even with the emergence of Wi-Fi, NFC, and Bluetooth as wireless standards, as well as HDMI as a wired standard newcomer, nothing has significantly diminished the absolute ubiquity, utility and universality of Universal Serial Bus (USB). Now going on more than 20 years as a basic connectivity standard, the old standby continues to receive continuous updates and improvements. One of the most significant recent developments was the USB-C plug. Although a substantial change visually compared to its predecessors, the new plug type simply acknowledges the increased importance of mobile devices in today’s world with its slimmer form factor.

But the innovation in the USB universe is not stopping with USB-C. In late July 2017, the USB Promoter Group announced USB 3.2, a standard that will set new levels of data throughput taking advantage of the two-lane capability of USB-C. Even better, the new standard will show a performance improvement of up to 2 Gbps over existing USB-C cables. Once cables optimized for the new standard hit the market, even greater gains in capacity and throughput could be realized. The full, final specs of USB 3.2 will be announced at the USB Developer Days North America event in September 2017.

Some say we’re moving toward a wireless world of seamless portability and connectivity. To that end, even the USB Implementer’s Forum is working on a wireless standard for the technology. But as we’ve all probably experienced at one point or another, fumbling around and cursing wireless connectivity standards after prompts for entering the right Wi-Fi address, security key, and sometimes getting the “could not connect” messages, it’s reassuring to still be able to just plug in and go. Thanks to the ever-better performance of USB, it’s looking like the tried-and-true wired connector is going to continue to be around for a long time to come.