Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi mesh-up sets the scene for more capable in-home Wi-Fi

• Qualcomm takes the covers off its ‘immersive’ home Wi-Fi platforms
• Device vendors will be getting commercial chip supplies early next year
• Now all that’s needed is affordable, speedy broadband to enable the immersive experience promised

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody a performance bump and one of the pandemic beneficiaries has been Wi-Fi which has seen its profile soar through lockdown as house-bound family bubbles fought it out over the available capacity - usually of their broadband pipe rather than the Wi-Fi itself. 

So Wi-Fi’s end of lockdown report card was something like; “Performed well considering everything thrown at it (games, streamed movies and TV, homework, along with zoom meetings and tutorials) but if we’re going to be doing this again there’s room for improvement. Could do better!”

That sort of sentiment must have been music to the ears of the various ecosystem participants, especially Wi-Fi chip Queen Qualcomm which this week announced four new Wi-Fi 6 and 6E capable chipset platforms operating at 6GHz. As well as offering extra speed and capacity, Wi-Fi at 6gz is good for indoor home use because at that frequency it filters out any neighbours also operating Wi-Fi at 6ghz.

There’s been much written already about the qualcomm chips ‘igniting’ the wifi market, but in truth the market for Wi-Fi is already pretty warm. Spend on wifi routers rose dramatically with the lockdown and things like multi-protocol Edge standards promised to give Wi-Fi a place at the high performance/low latency table alongside 5G (see - Getting closer to the edge: new MEC specifications on the way).

But certainly, Wi-Fi leader Qualcomm’s new chipsets will play a part in extending the market form-factors and pave the way for powerful mesh networking where it’s needed in larger homes with fast-growing demand from Wi-Fi hungry devices hiding in multiple rooms. 

Qualcomm’s chipsets will enable a fuller range of hub units when they become commercially available in early 2021. There are two ‘high end’ products: the 318 and 316 which can support 8 or 6 simultaneous streams and four stream and 2 band options will also be available.

Qualcomm boasts that it has come up with a range of chips capable of being meshed to support gigabit speeds in every room - form factors will include tiny palm-sized units which qualcomm says are designed to target low consumer price points. The chip vendor talks of achieving “corner-to-corner” coverage in every room and says it has used an innovative modular architectural approach and has deployed an advanced network packet processing technology to hit the chips’ performance requirements and provide a solution for a range of home price-points.

“Wi-Fi’s popularity has created increasingly diverse and densely populated Wi-Fi environments, including home networks which must now support many demanding applications simultaneously,” said Kevin Robinson, senior vice president of Marketing, Wi-Fi Alliance. “The capabilities of Wi-Fi 6E, such as gigabit speeds, low latency, and high capacity, will benefit users where they now need it most and allow Wi-Fi devices to operate efficiently in the most dynamic home connectivity settings.” 

Now all that’s needed is home broadband fast enough to do the “immersive Wi-Fi experience”  justice.

Here are the specifications for the Qualcomm series and platforms.

Qualcomm Immersive Home 310 Series

Representing the Qualcomm Tri-Band Wi-Fi 6 platforms within the portfolio, the 310 Series offerings are designed to simultaneously leverage all three bands of spectrum to support IoT-class devices (2.4GHz), today’s legacy media devices (5GHz), and enable congestion-relieving migration of node-to-node backhaul traffic from 5GHz to the 6GHz band, while ensuring the network is prepared to support devices supporting emerging 6GHz applications (VR/XR, live video sharing/streaming, real-time gaming).

• Qualcomm Immersive Home 318 Platform:

  • Advanced 8-stream Tri-Band in a 2x2 (2.4GHz) + 2x2 (5GHz) + 4x4 (6GHz) configuration, for a total of 7.8 Gbps total available PHY rate.

  • Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients.

  • Support for 160 MHz channels in 5/6GHz bands

  • 4x4 Wi-Fi 6E configuration in the 6GHz band delivers enhanced performance, range, and/or client count

• Qualcomm Immersive Home 316 Platform:

  • Advanced 6-stream Tri-Band in a 2x2 (2.4GHz) + 2x2 (5GHz) + 2x2 (6GHz) configuration, for a total of 5.4 Gbps total available PHY rate.

  • Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients.

  • Support for 160 MHz channels in 5/6GHz bands

Qualcomm Immersive Home 210 Series

Representing the Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 platforms within the portfolio, these offerings are designed to offer immediate and significant performance and cost benefits to existing mesh providers.

• Qualcomm Immersive Home 216 Platform:

  • Innovative 6-stream Wi-Fi 6 in a 2x2 (2.4GHz) + 4x4 (5GHz) configuration, for a total of 5.4 Gbps total available PHY rate.

  • Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients.

  • Support for 160 MHz channels in 5GHz bands

  • 4x4 Wi-Fi 6 configuration in the 5GHz band delivers enhanced performance, range, and/or client count

• Qualcomm Immersive Home 214 Platform:

  • Innovative 4-stream Wi-Fi 6 in a 2x2 (2.4GHz) + 2x2 (5GHz) configuration, for a total of 3.0 Gbps total available PHY rate.

  • Multi-gigabit wireless throughput for high performance clients.

  • Support for 160 MHz channels in 5GHz bands