Airgo Quadruples Wi-Fi Limit

QED writes "Airgo Networks, a privately held maker of wireless networking components, said on Wednesday it has developed chips that will increase the Wi-Fi speed limit by a factor of four. The Palo Alto, California-based company, which designs its chipsets around Multiple Input and Multiple Output (MIMO), a wireless technique that uses different radio channels to improve both speed and transmission quality, said it has achieved data rates up to 240 megabits per second (Mbps)... "

Comments

WiFi speed is fine for me... but...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I need better distance and fewer signal dropouts. I'm not talking about all that far distances either, just 200-300 feet inside an office building with many sheetrock walls and twisty hallways.

Real Speeds?

[jolar]

So what are the real speeds? No one gets 54mbps on 802.11g hardware, so I don't expect 240mbps on this MIMO stuff.

I don't understand the way wireless speeds are rated. I got very close to 100mbps on my LAN before I upgraded to gigabit. I can't get anywhere near 54mbps on my wireless if I put my Powerbook right next to the wireless router!

Multiple paths, not multiple frequencies?

[RradRegor]

I'm not certain, but I think the word channel may be misleading here. I think that MIMO is actually using the same bandwidth, just combining multiple RF paths to enhance the signal to noise ratio. Another MIMO link is here.

This doesn't interfere

[G4from128k]

That a great way to be a good neighbor. Piss all over all the channels available so no one else can do anything.

I was about to post with the same sentiment until I read more on the tech.

MIMO is not your typical blast-it-on-multiple channels approach. This article discusses the technology. Instead of using up a bunch of channels, MIMO systems send multiple signals on one channel and use multiple antennas and advanced algorithms on both ends to sort out which signal came from or went which direction.