The Importance of Mu-MIMO in the Wi-Fi Ecosystem

The market for Wi-Fi products continues to grow. New protocols allow for faster speeds, and people rely on Wi-Fi connectivity to the Internet more than ever. Even though the market has seen a profound shift to products supporting the larger 5 GHz spectrum band, this band is starting to become crowded as well in the home, enterprise, and on service provider small cells and hotspots. The shift to faster Wi-Fi protocols helps, but it is MU-MIMO (multi-user MIMO) that will realize the full potential of 802.11ac and mitigate network congestion. At this point, the inclusion of Wi-Fi chipsets supporting MU-MIMO is not something to plan for – the market is already being seeded with MU-MIMO-enabled access points and devices in all ecosystems and industries.

MU-MIMO allows users to see better download speeds and have a better user experience. Wi-Fi networks have less congestion because of the increase in capacity MU-MIMO provides, as it optimizes use of MIMO-enabled access points.