Before 802.11n arrives, Airgo further stretches WLAN limits

Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO) technology has been at the forefront of Wireless LAN (WLAN) advancements since it came to the public forefront back in early 2004. We first covered the technology that uses multipath as an advantage in “The greed for speed.” Airgo Networks has pushed the concept from day one, and last December with partner Belkin delivered on its MIMO promises as we covered in “Pre-n arrives.” Now Airgo is further pushing WLAN data rates with a technology that it calls True MIMO Gen3. The company is claiming that its newest chip sets will push data rates to 240 Mbps and that retail partners will deliver products based on the technology late this year.

Airgo is using the term True MIMO to separate the “spatial multiplexing” technology that it offers from other technologies that are also being called MIMO. In the spatial multiplexing case, multiple signal paths exist between transmitter and receiver simultaneously in the same frequency band enabled by antenna diversity. Other companies however, have taken advantage of the MIMO hype and use the term to refer to any WLAN implementation with multiple antennas. It’s the spatial multiplexing technology that will be mandated in the next generation IEEE 802.11n specification under development. Still, other technologies such as beam forming that are being called MIMO in some cases can also boost range and data rate, and in fact look for such an announcement in this space next Monday.

Meanwhile, Airgo may obsolete the 802.11n spec before it’s finished. Most expect a baseline of 108-Mbps data rates in the next spec. Airgo is boldly claiming that its new technology is even faster than wired Ethernet. Clearly that claim is not true in every case with wired Ethernet switch technology solving media-access problems and mainstream LANs headed to 1-Gbps rates. But Airgo may finally have technology that can solve the problem of digital video distribution in a home with no new wires. Moreover, Airgo delivered on their MIMO promises last year and did so in a way that did not hamper compatibility with 802.11b/g gear.