Digital Home Thoughts: 600 mbps Promised by 802.11n Chipset Maker

"Nearly one year ago, a Sunnyvale company called Quantenna announced that it had secured approximately $25 million to begin its development of various "next-gen" wireless technologies. Today, the company is ready to break a big barrier. Quantenna's QHS 802.11n chipsets have a 4x4 MIMO antenna system with Transmit Beamforming, with the stated goal of being used in the streaming of high-definition multimedia content or in HD IPTV setups. The company says its chips use the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands simultaneously, along with adaptive vector mesh routing to reduce communication latency. The three chips announced today are the QHS450 (450 Mbps max link speed, 200 Mbps max throughput), QHS600 (600 Mbps/400 Mbps), and QHS1000 (1 Gbps/600 Mbps)."

I'm all for more speed, but never at the expense of reliability - and right now I don't think 802.11n is reliable, largely because compatibility is theoretical without a finalized standard. 600 mbps sounds great - even if if means real-world speeds of half that - but until that spec is finalized, whether or not you'd actually see if working is anyone's guess.