Japanese technology company NTT has shown off a prototype version of 802.11ac Wi-Fi at the Wireless Technology Park show in the country. The demo sent data simultaneously to three users with an effective throughput of 120Mbps. NTT plans to commercialize the system with a few years for homes and offices.
The setup used a space division multiplex connection method based on multi-user MIMO (multiple in, multiple out) technology developed by NTT and on the same 5GHz frequency band as 802.11n Wi-Fi uses today. Six antennas were used for transmission and three for reception. The transmission side used a multi-user MIMO signal processing circuit thanks to a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip. The FPGA processes the space division while switching coefficients. In finalized versions, a more dedicated chip will do this, NTT said.
The IEEE802.11ac standard is due to be finalized in about 2013.
