Qualcomm announced at COMPUTEX 2016, that its subsidiary, Qualcomm Technologies, launched a new family of tri-radio 802.11ac platforms designed to boost the capacity of home networks and optimize its usage to deliver better consumer Wi-Fi experiences. The new platforms are designed to bring premium Wi-Fi features, like Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) and Qualcomm Wi-Fi SON (Self-Organizing Networks) technology into a new class of mainstream routers and smart repeaters, which will help accelerate adoption of technologies that simplify seamless connectivity.

Qualcomm Technologies’ new three radio solutions combine two 5 GHz radios and a 2.4 GHz radio to provide greater flexibility in the way that routers or repeaters use wireless spectrum and capacity, which can improve connectivity in a variety of network configurations. In homes using a mix of Wi-Fi technologies, the router can dedicate a radio (typically the 2.4 GHz radio) for legacy devices, which can alleviate network congestion and ensure more robust bandwidth for newer 802.11ac devices. Furthermore, when used in distributed networks, the third radio can provide a dedicated link to range extenders or help extend the range of mesh nodes.

Qualcomm Technologies is offering two new tri-radio platforms, both of which use its latest 802.11ac System-on-Chip (SoC), the IPQ40x9, which integrates the Qualcomm Internet Processor with 2-stream 802.11ac and Gigabit Ethernet. The platforms can be combined with Qualcomm Technologies’ new 2-stream 802.11ac radio, the QCA9886, to enable a new class of mainstream routers offering an unprecedented 2.2 Gbps of aggregate capacity, or its popular 4-stream 802.11ac radio, the QCA9984, to boost the capabilities of the premium routers and repeaters to up to 3.1 Gbps.

These new platforms, along with our dual-band platforms, also offer our advanced connectivity features, which had been previously aimed at the premium tier, to a wider mainstream audience. Through Qualcomm Wi-Fi SON technology, home networks are becoming simpler to install, more secure and automatically optimized. The self-configuring features make onboarding and configuring new devices, such as Bluetooth devices, on a Wi-Fi network much easier. The technology also includes self-managing features, which is designed to eliminate the guesswork from allocating capacity with tri-band products by automatically shifting traffic between bands and radios depending on real-time conditions. Wi-Fi SON now supports Qualcomm Technologies’ HomePlug AV2 powerline solutions, which allows for seamless roaming between a home’s wireless and wired networks.

With the demands required of today’s home networks, additional speed is no longer a convenience, but a necessity. Qualcomm Technologies’ Wave 2 802.11ac features meet this demand through its industry-leading MU-MIMO technology to provide two to three times faster connections. It also offers support for 160 MHz channels, which doubles connection speeds at close range.

This new family of tri-radio 802.11ac platforms is sampling to customers now.

Qualcomm Technologies
www.qualcomm.com