Microsoft Reinvents Wi-Fi for White Spaces

Microsoft has developed a new kind of Wi-Fi network that performs at its top speed even in the face of interference.

It takes advantage of a new Wi-Fi standard that uses more of the electromagnetic spectrum, but also hops between the narrow bands of unused spectrum within television broadcast frequencies. Krishna Chintalapudi and his team at Microsoft Research have pioneered an approach, called Wi-Fi-NC, which makes efficient use of these white spaces at these speeds. Rather than using a conventional Wi-Fi radio, it uses an array of tiny, low-data rate transmitters and receivers. Each of these broadcast and receive via a different, narrow range of spectrum. Bundled together, they work just like a regular Wi-Fi radio, but can switch between white-space frequencies far more efficiently. That means the system is compatible with existing equipment.

"The entire reception and transmission logic could be reused from existing Wi-Fi implementations," says Chintalapudi. The team calls these transmitters and receivers "receiver-lets" and "transmitter-lets." Together, they make up what's known as a "compound radio."