NETGEAR and Quantenna are collaborating on a 802.11n compliant access point with 4×4 Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennas.
While the typical enterprise 802.11n AP has either 2×3 or 3×3 (MIMO) radios, the 4×4 configuration is fully supported in the 802.11n standard and can deliver up to 600MB of theoretical throughput. It operates in the 5 GHz band.
According to David French, CEO of Quantenna, “Of more value is the digital beamforming hardware with on-chip DSP doing real-time characterization of the Wi-Fi channel to perform signal steering on a packet-by-packet basis.” Quantenna’s Full-11n technology is said to deliver full HD video quality across distances of 100 feet or more, regardless of signal interferences and dead zones that exist in most residential environments.
Quantenna is a fabless semiconductor company developing chipsets that claim to be the world’s first Full-802.11n solutions for wireless entertainment networking. The company is backed by some of Silicon Valley’s most esteemed venture capital firms, including Grazia Equity, Sequoia Capital, Sigma Partners, Southern Cross, and Venrock Associates.
Quantenna’s QHS1000 chipset is a fully integrated solution with eight RF transceivers and associated power amplifiers and up to 1 Gbps performance. It is available as a dual 4×4 or quad 2×2 and operates on both the 2.4 and 5 GHz spectrums concurrently.
Maybe you’d have a more practical solution for municipal WiFi if you could swap out a node like Portland’s SkyPilot municipal wireless hubs (left) with a $1500 beamformer and if only 25 were needed per square mile. Is that asking too much?
Competitors for high speed networking in the home include startup Amimon which recently announced a specification from the WHDI Consortium for its version of 5 GHz wireless that it claims does not compress HDTV signals. It uses error compression, not image compression.
Other efforts are jumping to the 60 GHz band. The Wireless Gigabit Alliance recently announced a specification for a broad range of 60 GHz apps. The Wireless Gigabit Alliance launched last May, has more than 30 companies as members, including NVIDIA, AMD, SK Telecom and TMC.
WiGiG competes another 60 GHz association, WirelessHD, using chip sets from startup SiBeam. Their chipset is being included in some new TV receivers from VIZIO.
