Privately-held Airgo Networks Inc. said on Wednesday it has developed wireless chips that are more than four times faster than Wi-Fi, a short-range wireless technology that delivers the Web to laptop computers in homes, offices and public places.
The chips could improve wireless home networks and may eventually let consumers link televisions and send video throughout a house.
The new chips, which cost about 15 percent less to make than Airgo’s earlier offerings, may even let some wireless networks perform better than some wired ones, said Raleigh. Several manufacturers plan to make products with the new chips, he said.
The new MIMO chips can reach speeds of 240 megabits per second (mbps) compared with the fastest Wi-Fi chips, which can reach speeds of 54 mbps. In a working network both technologies deliver roughly half their peak speeds on average.
Airgo’s current products average speeds of about 40 mbps to 50 mbps, or two to three times slower than the new ones.
Wheeler said Airgo’s higher speeds would become more important when TV makers start to support MIMO around the end of 2006 or the beginning of 2007. Until then, he believes that lower prices will help fuel demand.
He estimated that wireless products with Airgo’s new chips could go on sale for up to 20 percent less than current offerings, which retail for about $100.
Wheeler expects Airgo, which has sold more than 4 million of its earlier generation chips, to grab a 5 percent share of the $1 billion sales estimated for Wi-Fi chips in 2005 and said the new product could increase this share to 30 percent in 2006.
Hmmm… do we really need something faster than 802.11g that may or may not be backward compatible? I currently use a Buffalo Link Theater set-up which has no trouble streaming HD content over current wi-fi and I don’t need a new TV or a new access point. We’re certainly not likely to find any broadband Internet providers supplying anything near that speed in the near future. Sounds like a technology in need of an application, especially with the move to more efficient MPEG4/H.264 in HDTV.
Chris Swett, are you serious? I tried an 802.11g network for my home and I couldn’t even “stream” a DVD ripped to a different computer on the network. I gladly went back to a wired connection. Best of all it works all the time, even when I use my 2.4ghz phone or microwave.
But if it is cheaper and faster, anyone buying wireless for the first time will be interested.
If I needed it – for faster file transfers between multiple computers at home – I wouldn’t hesitate.
I would only worry about WiFi compatibility if I had a laptop which needed to be able to use existing hotspots.
Ima Fish, yes I’m serious. I have no trouble streaming two simultaneous HD MPEG4 streams from the same 802.11g access point to two different televisions using Buffalo Link Theater consoles (my only complaint being that they use WMV and not H.264). Digital terrestrial television uses a 6 MHz window that can accommodate a 19.4 Mbps transport stream (presumably MPEG2), well within the capability of 802.11g sustained data rates. Using more efficient MPEG4 codecs you can easily get two HDTV channels with that bandwidth.
Mike Voice, I have four wi-fi access points in my home, one for business DSL, one for home DSL and two Airport Express nodes for streaming music to two entertainment centers. On these networks I have two desktops, two notebooks and two networked DVR’s. That’s a LOT of upgrading if this thing isn’t backward compatible. I think the first consumers to go for more speed aren’t newbies but folks who demand that all their old equipment still login to the new access point, like 802.11b can on 802.11g. If it’s a whole new technology then there will be a REAL speed bump introducing it, especially if that introduction is still a year or more away and the only known application is a new television feature yet to be seen in the store.