What is Mu-Mimo wifi? What are the benefits and drawbacks of Mu-Mimo

Your wifi is slower when more clients connect simultaneously with a single-user (SU-Mimo) router. That’s where the introduction of Mu-Mimo comes in handy. What is Mu-Mimo wifi? What are the benefits and drawbacks you can get from it? Drag down and read on!

About Wifi Technology

What is wifi? It is wireless technology allowing the devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets) to interface with the Internet through the radio signals from the router.  

The wireless devices can receive a better radio signal with a wifi ranger. What is a wifi ranger? It is a gadget allowing you to get the best public wifi signal and LTE cellular-data signal with a secure password.

What is wifi?

What Is Mu-Mimo Wifi?

It is one of the types of Mimo wifi commonly used for wireless devices.  Mu-Mimo is an abbreviation for multi-user, an advanced feature of single-user MIMO (SU-MIMO). Mu-Mimo technology allows simultaneous users to get multiple data signals from a single access point.

Mu-Mimo is a key feature of IEEE 802.11ac Wave 2. Mu-Mimo access points are available in 2×2, 3×3, or 4×4 variations. 

These variations can create the data streams (two, three, or four) for each device. 

Related: What is mimo wifi?

What is Mu-Mimo wifi and how does it work?

How Does Mu-Mimo Work?

In Mu-Mimo technology, devices and routers have multiple radio antenna chains that are identical. Each identical radio antenna chain transmits a spatial stream to the receiver in the same frequency channel. 

Thus, multiple devices can access the signals from the router at the same time without interruption or congestion. 

Mu-Mimo Benefits And Drawbacks

Benefits 

Keep Signals Consistent 

Mu-Mimo access point keeps the signal of the connected clients constant and delivers bandwidth to each device without affecting their speed. You can check this benefit with a wifi speed test when enabling Mu-Mimo wifi. 

What is mu mimo wifi and its benefits

Support Any Channel Width

Mu-Mimo can serve various clients at the same time with any channel width. The speed depends on the number of devices supported on your network and the number of streams each supports. Using Mi-MiMo can double the downlink throughput of each device without wide channels. 

Increase Network Capacity

Mu-MiMo technology allows the access point to handle more wifi-intensive activities such as gaming or streaming. Thus, it increases the busy or dense network’s efficiency and capacity and alleviates congestion. 

Benefits of Mu-Mimo wifi

Improve Performance

You can improve wifi performance by reducing the delay of high-density activities such as video streaming video calls. The client device keeps a constant connection with other devices through the access point. 

Drawbacks Of Mu-Mimo Wifi

High  Cost 

The cost of setting and upgrading Mu-Mimo wifi is higher than the cellular or local standard networks. A wifi router using the Mu-Mimo feature is more expensive than a Su-Mimo router. 

High Power Consumption 

The hardware resources of a particular multi-user MIMO access point get the greater power requirements. Power consumption is also higher due to the processing of complex and intensive signal algorithms. Base routers dissipate more heat and consume more electricity.

Drawbacks of Mu-Mimo wifi

See more: what is metered wifi