The point of beamforming is to electronically steer a beam at a particular destination under software control. The military has been doing this for decades (e.g. for phased array radar), but it does involve extra complexity.<div>
<br></div><div>If fixed aiming is adequate, then obviously the Ubiquiti, or a home-brew equivalent, is the way to go.</div><div><br></div><div>Ruckus is doing beamforming by "antenna element selection." That's a lot simpler than full phased array steering. Basically, they have 12 somewhat directional antenna elements pointed in different directions. (They may also have some switch selectable phase delays). Then, on a frame by frame basis, they select which two of the antenna elements to connect to the 2 radio terminals on an Atheros Wi-Fi chip.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The Ruckus access points do work a lot better than the comparable Cisco devices, if you are an IT guy trying to provide Wi-fi coverage in your corporate offices. But I don't have any knowledge of what effective beam widths they achieve or whether they work in other environments.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In the future, we can expect full phased-array beamforming in Wi-Fi chip sets, i.e. at consumer prices. Some leading indicators are these start-up chip vendors:</div><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;">
<div><a href="http://www.quantenna.com/beamforming.html">http://www.quantenna.com/beamforming.html</a></div><div><a href="http://www.celeno.com/Technology/">http://www.celeno.com/Technology/</a></div></blockquote><div><br>
<div>Thanks,</div><div>Brough<br><br>Mobile: +1 617 285-0433 Skype: brough<br>Blog: <a href="http://blogs.broughturner.com/">http://blogs.broughturner.com/</a><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 5:06 PM, Stelios Valavanis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stel@onshore.com">stel@onshore.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
you know these are $2k. you can build a dual-radio setup for $500 or buy 2<br>
ubiquiti's for $90 each.<br>
<div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
On Tuesday, August 17, 2010 02:39:35 pm Alexander List wrote:<br>
> Hi,<br>
><br>
> we've been talking about beamforming outdoor mesh APs.<br>
><br>
> I found one, but the bandwidths advertised don't really convince me:<br>
><br>
> <a href="http://www.ruckuswireless.com/pdf/ds-zoneflex-7762.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.ruckuswireless.com/pdf/ds-zoneflex-7762.pdf</a><br>
><br>
> The price tag of USD 2k is also quite steep, and it's all proprietary ...<br>
><br>
> Alex<br>
><br>
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