Mobile working Toolkit

The long and winding road to Wi-Fi 2.0

Tags:
Hot Spot,
Wi-Fi,
Wireless,
Centrino

Matthew Broersma ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 17 Oct 2005 15:30 BST

A major upgrade has arrived for Wi-Fi that massively boosts speed and range while all but doing away with interference problems. The technology is called MIMO, and is already making its way into homes and small businesses.

The technology, which uses multiple antennas to achieve dramatic performance gains, is already available. Chipmaker Airgo, for one, is currently working on its fourth-generation products with Cisco's Linksys subsidiary; Belkin and Buffalo all use Airgo's technology. Samsung is also planning to use Airgo's chips in its laptops.

Many experts believe that MIMO is the future of the wireless LAN. "The first wave, 802.11b, 11a and 11g, improved modulation," explains Leif-Olaf Wallin, an analyst with research firm Gartner. "The next step is to make the antenna smarter."

But while MIMO has the potential to become move Wi-Fi forward it is not yet standardised, with several different, incompatible implementations of it being shipped by rival chipmakers including Intel, which is used to getting its own way. The issues facing MIMO are very similar to the situation with the 802.11g standard in the last few months before the standard was finalised, with vendors shipping gear promised to be compatible with approved kit. But this time around, instead of being a few months off, the standard in question — 802.11n — is about two years away, and a draft hasn't even been agreed on yet.

The standards issue surrounding MIMO has led some industry analysts to issue a warning to enterprises and even the general public to steer clear of the technology for the time being. But so far, consumers and small businesses, at least, don't seem to be listening. Blistering performance gains are one reason — Wi-Fi gear with MIMO added on can make networks run at four times the speed of standard 802.11a/g networks, and 20 times that of older 802.11b networks.

But despite the standards problems, a lot of companies are choosing to invest in proprietary MIMO WLANs for the very simple reason that the technology is available now. "People have a tendency to buy whatever's the latest thing," says Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney.

Manufacturers say large enterprises are also getting on board. Airgo is targeting...

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