Described by its supporters as disruptive, MIMO (multiple in, multiple out) technology has spawned a triangle of love and suspicion.
Airgo Networks, which claims to have pioneered the idea of MIMO as we currently know it, said it is pleased the industry is embracing the technology. But Airgo also accused Bell Labs of adopting its idea without giving proper credit to Airgo, according to Greg Raleigh, chief executive officer at Airgo.
Industry watchers are not surprised over the controversy. “MIMO is one of the most important technologies in the industry,” remarked Craig Mathias, principal analyst with Farpoint Group.
Suspicion rears its head as Airgo said some companies are laying false claims to MIMO. It is an antenna-based technology that allows the transmission of data through multiple channels into a single radio without compromising the material.
“MIMO technology has changed hundreds of years of thinking in wireless,” said Airgo’s Raleigh, adding that his firm’s product is different because it complies with OFDM technology. With OFDM, Raleigh and his colleague, V.K. Jones at Stanford University, proved MIMO could improve to a multipath solution. MIMO’s first applications were point-to-point, line-of-sight microwave links, according to Mathias.
MIMO has been touted as capable of replacing Ethernet at home and in the office environment. “This product category ushers in a completely new era of wireless networking performance by seamlessly connecting the most demanding applications such as HDTV and VoIP at an effective range more than twice that of standard Wi-Fi equipment,” said the company.
Airgo is delving into the wireless local area network space. Bell Labs, which has already won contracts with the federal government, is focusing its MIMO business on wide area networks. Airgo and other companies say MIMO will fall under the 802.11n protocol.
A group of about 500 people are working on a standard. Some of the companies chipping in include Broadcom Inc., Intersil, Texas Instruments Inc., and Agere Systems Inc. But Airgo said it is the only company to conceive, develop and deliver MIMO multi-dimensional signal processing solutions. Airgo and others have begun to describe their offerings as true MIMO.
“By offering products with true MIMO, we gain early access to this new and attractive Wi-Fi market segment,” said Asok Kumar, vice president of marketing for California-based SOHOware, which is planning to ship Airgo’s products.
But these competitors are rolling out pre-standard products known as Pre-n. Raleigh said all the products will be backward compatible to `n,’ when the standard is fully approved and ratified.
On the third part of the triangle are companies such as Airespace, Bermai and Motia. Raleigh said the “impostors” have what is described as beam switching, which has multiple input and a single output, not multiple output.
Alan Cohen, vice president of marketing at Airespace, agreed that “in the purest sense of the word,” his company does not use MIMO technology. However, he claimed his company’s solution is client agnostic, unlike Airgo’s.
“It’s not what you call it, but what it does,” said Farpoint Group’s Mathias, explaining that the term MIMO is imprecise at the moment. He noted that MIMO has a basic definition, and Airgo meets it.
