The latest commercial (though unfinalized) iteration of the Wi-Fi platform is 802.11ac, but this will be a more complex, and potentially longer-lived, version than its predecessors. The feature set that is currently being certified in devices by the Wi-Fi Alliance is only ‘Wave 1’, while additional functionality will be added soon ‘ though not immediately certified ‘ under ‘Wave 2’, with a third wave to follow.
Quantenna says that its 11ac chips have the standard’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’. CEO Dr Sam Heidari told Wireless Watch’s sister publication, Faultline, that Wave 2 is a superset of Wave 1 with features specific only to 11ac, and not shared by other Wi-Fi variants.
The functions in Wave 2 have not yet been widely implemented in 11ac chips and are not yet being certified, but they are fully defined in the draft standard.
Heidari said Quantenna included the majority of the functions from Wave 2 in its new chips, notably support for 4×4 MIMO with four streams, and MU-MIMO (multiuser MIMO). Wave 1 only goes up to 3×3 MIMO but the larger number of antennas enables a larger area to be covered. It also provides faster throughput at a greater distance for lower order MIMO devices that have 1×1 or 2×2 configurations ‘ still dominant in tablets and smartphones 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 sees them appearing 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, although the company has deals with larger chipmakers Intel and STMicro. These deals will have major long term benefits to the company, but have been under-reported. Heidari said these agreements ‘will let Quantenna reach farther, grow faster and stay steadier’.
For instance, the Intel deal results in Quantenna’s 11ac chips being included in the reference design for equipment that uses Intel’s DOCSIS chips, which are designed to allow cable TV operators and their box makers to get new products to market quickly. Quantenna also has a similar reference design pact with STMicro for equipment that uses its DOCSIS chips. 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 far more quickly than it would have otherwise. STMicro has the clout and reach of being a company with more than $8bn in annual sales and can help Quantenna technology get adopted 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, but having Intel and STMicro as partners ‘ and helping them compete with Broadcom – is a good endorsement for a small company.
With the advent of gigabit 11ac chips and equipment, it is tempting to ask why companies are still investing in new wireline technologies for the home video market. Heidari says 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.
Other considerations hold more cautious service providers back . First, the cost of deploying a new technology, which can run into billions of dollars and be disruptive to employees and subscribers. Second, 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 ‘ because of consumer churn and government oversight. 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.