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March 9, 2004

MIMO: Coming Soon

By Nancy Gohring

Vendors say that access points and PC cards that use MIMO technology will be available by the end of this year: MIMO, which stands for multiple-input-multiple-output, is a smart antenna technology that promises to boost speed and throughput of wireless gear. Some say that MIMO will likely be part of the next Wi-Fi upgrade, 802.11n. This story quotes an unnamed vendor executive who says that in trials, gear using MIMO chips from Airgo produced a 200 percent to 400 percent increase in throughput over standard gear and 150 percent to 300 percent better range.

Supporters say that MIMO shouldn’t increase the price of gear dramatically. I’m not sure I believe that but I suppose I’ll see.

Atheros and Broadcom both declined to say if they’re working on MIMO. Amusingly, they both pointed out that customers won’t want to buy products that don’t comply with the IEEE standard. Both companies have products that boost throughput in a proprietary fashion so that argument hasn’t stopped them in the past.

Posted by nancyg at March 9, 2004 7:32 AM

Categories: Standards

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Read the whole thing if you want, but the gist is as follows   <snip>  200 percent to 400 percent increase in throughput over standard gear and 150 percent to 300 percent better range… </snip> [Wi-Fi Networking News]... [Read More]

Tracked on March 9, 2004 8:53 AM

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