Quantenna promises to boost WiFi signals with new chipsets

There's certainly no shortage of folks promising to give WiFi a boost, but upstart Quantenna looks to be one of the few that is actually close to getting something out the door. That comes in the form of what the company claims to be the "world's first" fully integrated 802.11n chipsets with both 4x4 MIMO and transmit (Tx) beamforming, which it says will help push WiFi signals to every corner of your home at throughput rates up to 1 Gbps. The chipsets also include other niftiness like Vector Mesh Networking, and they'll be available in both 2.4GHz, 5.0GHz, and dual-band versions, the latter of which does operate on both spectrum concurrently. While there's no word on any actual consumer products based on the chipsets just yet, Quantenna says it'll have samples available for "top-tier customers" later this year, with prices expected to hit $20 when they're produced in large amounts, or $40 for the dual-band chip.

[Via GigaOM]

[Wulile @ Oct 15th 2008 3:04AM]

I didn't know they were making chips that looked like quarters now... cool!!

[vibhor goyal @ Oct 15th 2008 3:14AM]

1 Gbps @ 20$... wow.. thats something i have been craving for..

[j_g_puff @ Oct 15th 2008 5:18AM]

If you're expecting 1Gbps raw throughput, you'll be sorely disappointed. That's not to say these devices won't be awesome though - if they do a good job of implementing it, you will probably be able to achieve a steady 100Mbps over a reasonable range. Antenna quality plays a big part in this though, and that will be dependant on how much the integrators decide to spend on them.

Of course, the most interesting statistic would be power consumption - using my N95 8GB's WiFi kills the battery pretty quickly. I've no idea what chipset it uses though.

[webon @ Oct 15th 2008 3:20AM]

how does one "install" one o this things?

[Valicore @ Oct 15th 2008 3:33AM]

It would (I assume) be sold to companies that make end-user products (laptops, wifi cards, routers, etc.) and they would integrate it into existing products or build new products around it.

[Reader @ Oct 15th 2008 4:54AM]

Swallow it... Uses body heat for power.

[adam @ Oct 15th 2008 3:28AM]

i feel i shouldnt get hardons for a wifi chip.

i guess i can't argue with hormones.

[Yoni @ Oct 15th 2008 4:14AM]

That's a HUGE quarter.

[Str1ker @ Oct 15th 2008 8:32AM]

Nice coin.

[Samboini @ Oct 15th 2008 3:16PM]

That's what she said.