At the Broadband World Forum 2016 in London, Broadcom Limited announced a 4x4 802.11ac Wave2 solution that improves range performance and video over Wi-Fi. The BCM4366E Wave-2 802.11ac 4x4 radio incorporates RangeBoost technology for enhanced Wi-Fi coverage and DoubleZero acceleration technology for best-in-class video over Wi-Fi.

Broadcom’s RangeBoost technology provides up to 9 dB of receiver sensitivity improvement by utilizing advanced signal processing with a unique receiver architecture. Routers or gateways that incorporate BCM4366E with RangeBoost will benefit from an expanded coverage area and the ability to deliver high internet speeds to smart phones and tablets.

The BCM4366E also implements Broadcom’s DoubleZero Acceleration for wireless video delivery. It enables zero packet loss and zero host CPU consumption when paired with Broadcom's service provider gateway and router SoC platforms. With DoubleZero Acceleration, Wi-Fi packets can bypass the host CPU via a hardware acceleration path, allowing the host CPU to be fully utilized for other applications, including home automation and IoT. Since wireless video is fully offloaded from the host CPU, it eliminates the possibility of video packet loss due to contention for limited CPU resources. Broadcom’s unique system approach tightly integrates the gateway SoC with the WLAN radio, yielding performance and cost benefits not otherwise achievable.

“Enhanced Wi-Fi coverage and enablement of reliable wireless video delivery have become universal requirements across our OEM and service provider customer base,” said Greg Fischer, senior vice president and general manager of carrier access at Broadcom. “With the technology incorporated into BCM4366E and Broadcom’s ability to focus on platform level solutions, we are able to address some of the most critical challenges related to our customers' Wi-Fi service deployments.”