Understanding Technology Options for Deploying Wi-Fi How Wi-Fi Standards Influence Objectives A Technical Paper prepared for the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers By Derek Ferro VP Advanced Systems Engineering Ubee Interactive 8085 S. Chester Street Suite 200 Englewood, CO 80112
[email protected] Bill Rink Senior Director Product Management Ubee Interactive 8085 S. Chester Street Suite 200 Englewood, CO 80112
[email protected] www.ubeeinteractive.com Introduction As Wi-Fi technology evolves at an exponential pace, Operators must understand available Wi-Fi standards in order to make the best business decisions when purchasing and deploying new wireless gateways (i.e. performance versus cost). This paper will discuss the migration from 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11a, 802.11n and most recently the push to 802.11ac. It will also discuss the advancement of MIMO antenna technology from 1x1, 2x2, 3x3 and even 4x4. Many questions will be addressed: • What are the complexities of advanced MIMO? • When to implement which MIMO configuration? • What are alternative options for improving performance (power amplification, improved receive amplifiers, etc.)? • When should single band, dual-band selectable or dual-band concurrent gateways be deployed? • When examining the US residential market, what is the penetration of 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and dual-band homes, and what are the emerging trends in the marketplace? We hope to demystify the complexity surrounding Wi-Fi and look at the trade-offs in performance and cost presented by each option. www.ubeeinteractive.com Alphabet Soup: Understanding Wi-Fi Standards The Evolution of 802.11 Standards 802.11 technology has its origins in a 1985 ruling by the U.S.