| Airgo develops MIMO WiFi for multimedia in the home |
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| Written by Stuart Corner | |
| Wednesday, 31 May 2006 | |
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WLAN chipset developer Airgo Networks has upgraded its multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technology specifically to enable it to deliver multimedia content wirelessly around the home. And it has announced deals with STMicroelectronics and Caton to bring products to market. The upgrade, dubbed 'True MIMO Media' technology, is an enhancement of Airgo's True MIMO Gen3 technology designed specifically to optimise the performance of multimedia content delivered over WiFi networks by "dramatically increasing range and virtually eliminating packet errors even in the presence of interference". Airgo claims that, until now, service providers looking to provide expanded services to residential customers through set-top boxes (STBs) have been stymied by the limitations of wireless technologies, and running wires around a home is not practible. There is certainly evidence to support this. Late last year, Spanish telco, Telefonica, opted for a broadband over powerline solution to overcome this problem, ordering 30,000 powerline ethernet adaptors from BPL specialist Corinex to solve the problem of getting its DSL triple play service from the phone socket to where people want to watch TV in their homes. Airgo envisages the True MIMO Media technology being incorporated into set top boxes (STBs) to enable them to distribute incoming video content around the home, or wirelessly access content stored locally on a PC. Market projections for STBs indicate unit shipment growth of nearly 50 percent by 2009. According to a recent report from Infonetics Research, worldwide IPTV equipment revenue is forecasted to surge to $US6 billion by 2009. Currently, IP set top box revenue represents 42 percent of all IPTV equipment revenue, and sales are expected to nearly double every year for the next three years. Airgo also announced alliances with chip manufacturer STMicroelectronics which will manufacture chipsets using the True MIMO Media technology and with STB manufacturer Caton Overseas. STMicroelectronics chips are found in the majority of cable, satellite, terrestrial and personal video recorder (PVR) STBs on the market today, according to Airgo. Airgo is collaborating with Caton on its V2O Wireless Home Media Network, billed as the world's first wireless set-top box capable of flawlessly distributing video streams throughout the home. It also serves as centralized storage for consumer media files like MP3s, digital video and digital photos. Caton will be releasing its V2O Wireless Home Media Network in two phases, the first of which will begin shipping to customers for satellite digital TV operators in the next few months. In early 2007, Caton will release the V2O Wireless Home Media Network for cable and IPTV installations. Michael Yang, President of Caton, said: "After thoroughly vetting all Wi-Fi chips on the market or even in development, Caton identified Airgo True MIMO Media wireless chips as the only technology for the foreseeable future that has the performance necessary to deliver robust, error-free multimedia streaming throughout the home." Another potential contender would be 802.11n, for which a draft specification was agreed in January and for which D-Link, Netgear and Linksys are already shipping products. However concerns have been expressed about backward compatibility with 802.11b/g (Airgo claims that True MIMO is backward compatible), and last month progress on ratification of the draft stalled: a hiccup which Airgo was quick to bring to the attention of the press.
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