Spectrum slicing is a key, new capability for emerging 5G networks, but similar principles are also being applied to Wi-Fi by Edgewater Wireless, a Canadian company that’s been tightening ties to the cable industry in recent years.
Designed to boost throughputs and data efficiency on residential and commercial Wi-Fi networks, Edgewater Wireless’s proprietary approach, billed as Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing, divides a block of unlicensed spectrum into multiple individual lanes for traffic to flow upon.
That capability can result in performance gains of 20 to 30 times, depending on the individual implementation and application, according to Andrew Skafel, Edgewater Wireless’s president and CEO.
Edgewater Wireless president and CEO Andrew Skafel.
Using a highway metaphor, he says Edgewater Wireless’s technology essentially spreads the bits out by carving out different lanes for each car to travel upon, rather than packing all the bits into a bus and requiring that bus to travel on a solitary lane.
Edgewater Wireless’s current platform can create up to six individual “channels” – three in the 2.4GHz band and another three in the 5GHz band. A 12-channel offering is on the company’s near-term roadmap, Skafel says.
He adds that Edgewater’s approach is spectrum-agnostic, and that the company is keeping a close eye on developments surrounding the next-gen Wi-Fi 6 standard and developments concerning the 6GHz band after the FCC moved to open up that spectrum to unlicensed operations earlier this month.
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