The feature set in the 11ac standard that is now being certified is called Wave 1. Additional features that are not yet being certified are in what’s called Wave 2.
Quantenna has said that its 11ac chips have 11ac’s ‘Wave 2 MU-MIMO’ technology, which will enable devices with them to ‘reach farther, transmit faster and stay steadier than any other available solution.’
Quantenna CEO Dr Sam Heidari told us that Wave 2 is a superset of Wave 1 and specific only to the 11ac version of Wi-Fi, not to other versions of Wi-Fi. The functions in Wave 2 have not yet been widely implemented in 11ac chips. The certification process for Wave 1 features is already in progress. However, Wave 2 features are fully defined in the standard. For example, Wave 1 only defines up to 3×3 MIMO, not the 4×4 that Quantenna uses in its Wi-Fi chips.
Heidari said Quantenna included the majority of the functions from Wave 2 in its 11ac chips, notably the support for 4×4 MIMO with four streams, and the MU-MIMO (multi-user MIMO).
He said 4×4 MIMO covers a larger area than 3×3 MIMO. It also provides faster throughput at a greater distance for ‘lower order’ MIMO devices that have 1×1 or 2x2s that are the dominant configurations for tablets and smart phones today.
As for the MU-MIMO feature, Heidari said that it is considered one of the revolutionary features of the 11ac standard and will be key to accommodating the growing numbers of Wi-Fi devices that are logging onto their networks. MU-MIMO allows the simultaneous transmissions of streams to multiple clients. This will prevent a smart phone with 1×1 11ac chip from dominating the airtime of the gateway/access point and thus allowing them to operate continuously at their full capacity.
Heidari does not expect its 4×4 11ac chips to appear in any mobile devices in the near term but expects them in gateways, routers, whole home DVRs, TVs and gaming consoles. There’s no doubt Quantenna is already working with makers of such equipment, but we could not squeeze any of the company names from him, however Quantenna has deals with chipmakers Intel and ST Micro.
These deals will have major long-term benefits to the company, but have been under-reported. Heidari added, ‘the deals will let Quantenna reach farther, grow faster and stay steadier.’
We asked Heidari about the importance of its recent Intel deal that results in Quantenna’s 11ac chips being included in the reference design for equipment that uses Intel’s DOCSIS chips. He says Intel has a good market share in the DOCSIS market and the partnership allows cable TV operators and their box makers to get new products to market quickly.
Quantenna also has a similar reference design deal with STMicro for equipment that uses its DOCSIS chips. Although not well known by consumers, STMicro is a top-tier chipmaker with a strong presence in many diverse markets including some that will provide Quantenna an opportunity to expand its presence into a wider market much quicker than it would have otherwise. STMicro has the clout and reach of being a company with more than $8 billion in annual sales. It can help Quantenna technology get adopted faster in markets that are not core to it now.
Broadcom, the dominant supplier of DOCSIS chips, has its own 11ac chips and prefers to avoid Quantenna. So Quantenna’s partnerships with Intel and STMicro for the DOCSIS market is natural and very complementary ‘ win-wins for all companies because they compete against Broadcom.
It’s especially a big win for Quantenna because it has two of the big three in DOCSIS chips as its close partners, not a bad place to be. Having Intel and STMicro as partners is a good endorsement for a small company.
When we talk to makers of 11ac chips and set tops that use 11ac, especially after they tell us how great their products are, we ask what the future for wired home networking is and why companies keep announcing new and improved wireline technologies. Why would a service provider or consumer install network wiring in the home if 11ac Wi-Fi devices and adapters are so good?
Heidari said this could be attributed to multiple reasons. Wi-Fi has only recently proved skeptics wrong and showed that video-over-wireless can be delivered reliably and with throughputs equal to if not higher than the wireline technologies. That being said, different companies have different approaches as to when to deploy new technologies; some are more careful and conservative than others.
We think there are perhaps four considerations holding them back,; the cost of deploying a new technology, which can run into billions of dollars and be disruptive to employees and subscribers; the fact they dare not promise more than they are absolutely certain they can deliver 99% of the time ‘ like faster speeds and wider coverage areas.
Also consumers pay for their services monthly and can cut the cord or switch to a competitive service at any time they are not happy with what they are getting, and service providers are subject to government regulators that constantly monitor how they are performing and whether those measure up to what they have promised.
Heidari predicted that a few major service providers will be 100% wireless in the near term, but agreed that it’s likely that most will take longer. He said it takes time for them to get 100% comfortable with a new technology.
Quantenna has eatemn up a lot of cash getting to this leadership point in WiFi, and now has to begin capitalizing on it if it doesn’t want to run out of cash.