MIT Can Make Wi-Fi 10X Faster With New Routers

With the world being so interconnected via the internet, slow Wi-Fi is now a problem that could have severe ramifications, even impacting businesses and livelihoods. As such, finding ways to boost wireless speeds is now considered crucial for the future and it seems engineers at MIT came through. With the new smart routers they created, the engineers claim that they can boost Wi-Fi speeds tenfold.

As the Fast Company explains it, slow Wi-Fi connection is similar to how the night sky is clearer in the countryside than it is in crowded cities where bright lights from cars, buildings and street lamps obscure the stars. Essentially, internet connection becomes slower if more people tap into a single AP. By creating routers that can communicate effectively, however, internet speed can be regulated and directed more efficiently.

MIT engineers achieved this via a technology called the MegaMIMO 2.0, which was built on the original MIMO. MIMO essentially coordinated several antennas in order to make them more efficient while connecting to just one AP.

Basically, the technology anticipates and manipulates radio waves so that they boost each other instead of cancelling each other as they collide, which they often do when several devices tap into a single Wi-Fi network. This results in faster connection instead of slowing down.

The researchers published their paper online, which also indicates that this technology has its limitations. For example, one set of routers can only ever coordinate the signals coming from one AP. This means that the routers can’t boost the signals of both the buyer and their neighbor’s Wi-Fi.

Then again, it isn’t likely that those relying on Wi-Fi would care too much about what their neighbor’s internet speed is like as long as they can download all the Netflix movies and episodes they want even while their relatives or friends are also tapping into the network. At the very least, this solves one problem that many in the world deeply care about at this point in time.