Terms such as "256 QAM," "MU-MIMO" and "beamforming" might sound like jargon out of a "Star Trek" episode, but they are new tech capabilities to boost wireless router speeds. They are hitting the market in the wake of the new WiFi standard called 802.11ac by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association and the emergence, in January, of the first Wave 2 devices designed to take advantage of it.
Many new routers are expected to capitalize on the higher-data-rate capabilities of 802.11ac, which, theoretically, is capable of speeds of up to 1.3 gigabytes a second. One router, announced recently at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, bills itself as the first portable 802.11ac Wave 2 router and doubles as a powerful device charger.