Wi with more Fi

A new update to WIFi, is set to sharply improve the home hotspot, in 2016. Say hello to MU-MIMO

You are working on your laptop and suddenly the Powerpoint you are editing freezes. This happens all the time when you use a Wi-Fi router to share a single broadband connection to the home. Wireless hotspots are limited by the technology they harness. The underlying Wi-Fi technology that fuels the wireless hotspot at home or office today can serve only one device at a time. It cycles rapidly from one PC, phone or laptop to the other, creating the illusion that all are being simultaneously served.

The first devices that harness an exciting new technology were unveiled last month — by mid 2016 we can expect to see them in India. The Wi-Fi routers we use today exploit what is called SI MIMO: Single User Multiple In, Multiple Out. That means, while multiple devices can latch on to one hotspot, it only serves one user at a time, which explains the familiar logjams. The current WiFi standard, 802.11ac has now been updated as 11 ac Wave2 and it enables Multi User or MU MIMO. This means it can serve every user device in the home, simultaneously. No more waiting in queue!

Linksys says it’s new Max-Stream series of MU-MIMO-ready routers which we can expect to buy for anything between '14,000 and '20,000, the whole household can play video games, listen to music, stream movies – all at the same time. A new Wave 2 router alone is not enough; you need a matching wireless adapter at the PC or laptop end. So Linksys has also launched a Max Stream USB adapter for the equivalent of '4000.

Another router leader, TP-Link has gone ahead and announced a MI-MIMO router, the Talon AD7000, that offers the next iteration in data speed beyond 11 ac that is 11 ad . This means serving multiple users at the same time at even higher speeds up to 4.6 GBPS, about 3 times faster than all 11ac routers today.

Who needs these dizzy speeds Well, you and I will demand them, as we get used to better TV, which is already moving from 2K and HD to 4K and Ultra HD. MIMO Man Who better to help us understand what MU-MIMO means for us that the man widely known as the Father of MIMO — India-born emeritus professor at Stanford University, Dr Arogyaswamy Paulraj. It is exactly 20 years since he invented the MIMO standard and obtained a patent jointly with another Indian and Stanford don, Dr Tom Kailath.

“The increased data rate offered by MIMO is distributed across multiple users simultaneously — instead of a single user as in ordinary MIMO”, he said.

Dr Paulraj who is also known in India as the naval officer-leader of the team which developed the country’s first indigenous sonar anti-submarine defence system.

— IndiaTechOnline(eom)