Broadcom unveils 802.11ax offerings to deliver Wi-Fi, Max WiFi for connected homes, businesses

Broadcom Limited upgraded its position in Wi-Fi by launching Max WiFi, its line of connectivity solutions using the next Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ax. The Max WiFi chips enable up to four times faster download speeds, six times faster upload speeds, four times better coverage, and seven times better battery life than similar Wi-Fi solutions on the market today that use 802.11ac.

The chips released this week are designed to kick-start an ecosystem of Wi-Fi routers, residential gateways, enterprise access points, and client devices that deliver next generation Wi-Fi, the company announced this week.

Max WiFi is the sixth generation of Wi-Fi and the most powerful standard yet, with innovations that go beyond speed. Max WiFi supports delivery of simultaneous video, voice, data and IoT services to an increasing number of wireless devices. This delivers steady, high-speed Wi-Fi with unprecedented quality of service is available wherever consumers want it: homes, offices and high-traffic public venues such as stadiums. Max WiFi’s unique architecture is also optimized for internet upload, making social media live-streaming and cloud storage seamless.

Max WiFi implements uplink and downlink Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) technology, which is the fundamental building block of 802.11ax. OFDMA increases efficiency and capacity of the wireless network as several devices. communicate concurrently in portions of the frequency spectrum allocated proportional to their needs.  In addition, it enables fine grain quality of service for complex quadruple play applications via the implementation of sophisticated downlink and uplink scheduling.

It also provides multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) technology to increase channel capacity when servicing multiple simultaneous devices; Target Wake Time (TWT) to orchestrate specific times when clients wake and sleep enabling mobile devices to reduce power consumption and increase battery life; and spatial reuse that allows access points to more efficiently share channel capacity by making decisions on when to transmit data.

The demand for high performance Wi-Fi in the home is growing unabated with a typical family of four expected to have an average of 50 connected devices by 2022. At the same time, the amount of media content exchanged among mobile devices through the cloud has increased exponentially.

According to Extreme Networks, about 11.8 terabytes of data was generated at this year’s Super Bowl by fans posting videos, updating status, and streaming live from the stadium.

The need to support the ‘things’ that connect the home and the mobile devices that create and consume video content in the moment already strain existing Wi-Fi networks. This will be more pronounced for emerging applications such as augmented reality & virtual reality. Broadcom’s Max WiFi, with its innovative architecture, addresses these growing needs of modern consumers in their connected homes.

Broadcom is sampling Max WiFi solutions to its early access partners in retail, enterprise and smartphone, service provider, and carrier segments.

802.11ax has generated broad support across the consumer-electronics industry. Companies and partners across the ecosystem appreciate the importance of 802.11ax and are committed to its development, integration, and distribution.


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