What makes MIMO advancements so significant to todays communication technology?
Bhaskar Rao: The conventional technology is limited to having a single antenna. Now it is possible to have multiple antennae in both transmitter and receiver to add more power at the same cost. TNW: In layman’s terms, why is this development so important? Rao: The real excitement is that this opens up new possibilities for signal-to-noise ratio. It takes more power to double this rate. The capacity scales linearly with the same power and bandwidth. This is the real benefit. It is all in the hardware at no new cost. TNW: How long will consumers have to wait for this MIMO technology to be available? Rao: It is already being used as the new WiMax standard. This wireless technology is in new products. You can see the MIMO label on the cartons of products that use it. TNW: What led you to this particular field of research? Is it an area that nobody previously studied? Rao: I am a latecomer to this research. Bell Labs had worked on what it called a “Blast System” in 1994 and 1995. After that
