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Quantenna Communications aims to produce wire-like wireless. To push that dream further, the startup is licensing its technology to chip giant STMicroelectronics today. Geneva, Switzerland-based STMicroelectronics will integrate Quantenna’s 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology into its system-on-chip platforms, so that Quantenna’s design will become a small part of a larger chip.

For consumers, that means that cheaper and faster Wi-Fi is on the way. Fremont, Calif.-based Quantenna designs chips that can transfer data using the Wi-Fi wireless networking protocol at faster rates, making it possible for users to fling high-definition video around the home without worrying about bogging down the network. The ST deal is a big vote of confidence for Quantenna, which has raised a whopping $159 million in its history.

Sam Heidari, CEO of Quantenna, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the licensing agreement is a very important one for his company, as it will allow Quantenna to get into devices that it would not have otherwise been able to. Heidari said that 802.11ac wireless networks may transfer data at theoretical speeds of 6 gigabits a second, compared to 600 megabits a second for the previous generation of 802.11n chips.

The two companies have started joint engineering integration efforts and the first ST products with Quantenna Wi-Fi are expected to debut in 2014. STMicroelectronics had $8.5 billion in revenue in 2012. Quantenna is a chip design house that specializes in MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technology, which can be used to cram more data into a wireless network. Quantenna’s technology will enable wireless networks to handle multiple high-def video streams at the same time.

Quantenna was founded in 2006, and it has funding from Sequoia Capital, Venrock, Sigma Partners, Southern Cross Venture Partners, DAG Ventures, Rusnano, Swisscom Ventures, Grazia Equity, and Telefónica Digital. Rivals include Qualcomm-Atheros, Broadcom, and Marvell. Those companies are all much bigger than Quantenna, but its focus on high-end technology has helped it. ST placed a bet on Quantenna, Heidari said, because the startup proved itself with its competitive 802.11n chips, or the previous generation of Wi-Fi chips.

Quantenna is focused on making multi-user 4×4 MIMO Wi-Fi. That basically translates to faster networking. With this in place, consumers will be able to put wireless devices anywhere in the house, even a multi-story house, and get a strong Wi-Fi signal. For an internet service provider, it means fewer customer service calls.

Quantenna’s customers include Airties, Amper, Cisco, Datasat Technologies, Gemtek, Motorola, Netgear, Sagecomm, Sigma Designs, Swisscom, Technicolor, and Telefónica.

July 9-10, 2013
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Apparently, we love Wi-Fi.

Total cumulative global Wi-Fi-enabled device shipments reached five billion in 2012, according to ABI Research. And the pace of innovation isn’t slowing, with new Wi-Fi protocols rolling out in 2013 and close to 20 billion WiFi-enabled devices predicted to be in the market by 2017.

Naturally, we’re familiar with Wi-Fi in our laptops and smartphones. But the next level of Wi-Fi penetration, the firm says, is likely to be in home automation and smart, connected cars, as manufacturers continue to connect formerly isolated devices, equipment, and other things.

What’s up next? More speed, according to ABI’s Peter Cooney:

“Wi-Fi continues to develop as a technology in many ways,” Cooney said, adding that “the 802.11n protocol is now well established and has pushed the envelope increasing data rates, expanding Wi-Fi into the less crowded 5GHz space.”

The newest Wi-Fi protocols will vastly improve wireless data transfer speeds, with 802.11ac bringing gigabit-Ethernet style speeds and 802.11ad blazing up to a theoretical maximum speed of seven gigabits per second. 802.11b, by contrast, can only manage 11 megabits per second.

Of course, it’s not just Wi-Fi that is connecting our stereos, lights, cars, and smartphones. It’s also the full spectrum of communication technologies such as Bluetooth, UWB, NFC, and Zigbee. In fact, despite the fact that Wi-Fi is pervasive and powerful, it may be one of the least popular wireless communication protocols, as ABI is also predicting that in 2013 all of these technologies (combined with Wi-Fi) will result in more than five billion shipments of wireless connectivity chips in 2013 alone.

Which means that our devices will be smart and connected, even if we’re frying each other with all those radio waves.

photo credit: Palagret via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

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Netgear knows that while you occasionally want to check work email at home, what you really want a fast home network for is watching HD shows that you’re streaming wirelessly from the internet.

To that end, the company will be extending its line of home networking devices this year, making it simpler for consumers to connect their computers, TVs and devices to the internet for file storage, streaming media and basic connectivity.

The company also promised to deliver new routers this year based on the emerging 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard, which will deliver wireless speeds of up to 1.35Gbps. That’s about 4 times faster than 802.11n and 25 times faster than 802.11g.

The company announced eight new products at the Consumer Electronics Show today, several of which are aimed at simplifying people’s access to streaming media.

“The PC is not dead. It’s evolving into something new,” said David Henry, a vice president at Netgear, pointing to the wide variety of devices in typical homes that depend on internet connections: tablets, streaming media boxes, smart TVs, smartphones as well as laptops and desktops.

“Whether it’s a post-PC era or not, the demands on the network are new.”

The proportion of homes with more than six devices connected to the internet has grown 70 percent from 2010 to 2011, according to a Netgear survey. For the first time, more than 50 percent of home internet traffic is based on real-time entertainment.

NetGear’s Media Storage Router (shown above) addresses many homes’ growing need for storage as well as wireless. With 2 terabytes of internal storage, it stores data as well as providing network connectivity. It’s compatible with Apple Time Machine as well as Windows backup software, so it can be used to back up any computer on your network. It’s also DLNA compatible, so it can be connected with compatible devices (such as televisions) on your network. It offers dual-band, N900 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi. It also offers two USB 3.0 ports for connecting additional storage, gives you remote access to your files and comes with a firewall for protecting your personal data.

The NeoTV Streaming Player, announced last year, now supports Hulu Plus (as well as previously-supported services, such as NetFlix, YouTube and dozens more). A future version will also support Intel Wireless Display (WiDi), so you can project your laptop screen onto your television in full HD.

“Because your laptop can access the entire internet, we can get the entire internet right there on your television with NeoTV,” said Henry.

The company’s new N900 Video and Gaming 4-Port WiFi Adapter provides wireless and Ethernet connections, optimized for gaming.

Netgear also announced a new Powerline 500 Nano power line adapter to provide 500 Mbps data connections over power lines.

To address those annoying “dead zones” in your home Wi-Fi network, Netgear offers the Universal Dual Band WiFi Range Extender. It can be used to extend 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi bands simultaneously and has four Ethernet ports for wired connections.

Last year’s Netgear Genie software monitors and helps you manage your home network. This year, the company will also offer a Netgear Genie app, so you can manage your network from an iPhone or Android phone. It provides access to wireless network controls, parental controls, and access control so you can boot off neighbors “borrowing” your bandwidth. If you’ve got media on your network (such as files stored on the Media Storage Router) you can select videos and direct them to DLNA-compatible devices on your network. You can also play media directly on your smartphone.

“The content can be on any DLNA share, and the player can be any DLNA player,” said Henry. In effect, it makes your phone into a basic remote control for accessing videos and music stored on your network.

The future includes 802.11ac, which will provide 1.35Gbps speeds. Products based on that standard will be available this year, Henry said. Also, next-generation power line standards will exceed 1Gbps, up from the 200Mbps capable with the current standard, HomePlug AV, or the 14Mbps possible with the previous version, HomePlug 1.0.

The company’s new Netgear Smart Network includes Netgear devices, an “Intelligent Cloud App Server,” and a development platform for creating apps that run on Netgear’s system. Developers can sign up for the Smart Network now. In the coming months, Netgear will be announcing devices that support the Smart Network.

For more gadget news, be sure to check out VentureBeat’s live coverage from CES 2012.

Photos: Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat

The new version of Wi-Fi wireless networking is called 802.11ac, and it can operate at a speed of around 1.3 gigabits per second, or three or four times the speed of the high-speed Wi-Fi available today, 802.11n.

Rahul Patel, vice president in the mobile and wireless group at the Irvine, Calif.-based chip design firm, said that the new standard has broad support from hardware makers and chip makers. That means that new products using 802.11ac could arrive in the market in the second half of 2012. That’s going to be a big help as users take to wireless in the home and elsewhere more and more.

“802.11ac solves the challenge of the media explosion,” Patel said in a press event in San Francisco today. The event focuses on trends that will be evident at the big industry trade event, the Consumer Electronics Show, in January.

People need this better connectivity because they go through connectivity withdrawal without it. In a survey conducted by Broadcom, about 35 percent of 1,025 people said they experience “connectivity withdrawal.” Of the group that experiences withdrawal, 17 percent said they experience it on a daily basis. Also, about 87 percent of consumers now use more than 10 hours of digital content per week, according to another survey.

The 802.11ac protocol is compatible with earlier versions of Wi-Fi. Like 802.11n, it taps into the less-crowded 5 gigahertz band of the wireless spectrum. Earlier Wi-Fi protocols used the crowded 2.4 gigahertz band, which suffers interference from other appliances. The 802.11n protocol uses both bands, as does 802.111ac.

The 802.11ac uses new modulation techniques to get to higher data rates. It uses “beam forming” to get to a higher range, almost double that of 802.11n, which reaches about 100 meters. So 802.11ac might reach 200 meters in range from a wireless access point. It has about three times the throughput at 802.11n on an 80 megahertz wireless channel and 256 QAM modulation, Patel said. With 160 megahertz and 256 QAM modulation, the improvement is four-fold. It also won’t use as much battery life, and Patel said that the cost of the Wi-Fi chips would be lower than that of rival, shorter-range chips using the Wireless HDMI wireless standard.

As for interference, Patel said, “The coexistence has been worked out.”