Batman:
MIMO only does MIMO if EVERY single device connected to that band is MIMO. if you have 99 MIMO devices and one is not MIMO it will not do MIMO
My impression is the same applies with WIFI-6 ...
That did not make sense to me, and I cant find any reference to it?
The downsides of MU-MIMO
There are also disadvantages to using wireless mesh systems and routers with MU-MIMO:
It works only when using the 802.11ac wireless standard and the 5 GHz WiFi frequency. You cannot take advantage of it on the 2.4 GHz frequency and older standards like 802.11n. The 2.4 GHz frequency is stuck with using SU-MIMO.
MU-MIMO increases only the download speed, not the upload speed.
You need both a router with MU-MIMO and network devices with MU-MIMO to get faster downloads. When buying new computers, smartphones, and other gadgets, you need to make sure that they work with 802.11ac wireless networks and that they support MU-MIMO transfers.
How devices connect to wireless routers when using older standards (SU-MIMO or 1x1 MU-MIMO)
Wireless routers that do not offer support for MU-MIMO use the so-called SU-MIMO method for transmitting data over a wireless radio channel. SU-MIMO stands for Single-User Multiple Input Multiple Output, and it means that one wireless channel can send and receive data to and from a network client at a time. SU-MIMO is part of the 802.11n networking standard that was finalized and published in October 2009. All wireless routers with support for the final version of the 802.11n standard can use the SU-MIMO method for transmitting data. When using this approach, routers are good at sending and receiving data, but only in one direction, to one client at a time. If you had a wireless router with one antenna that is used for receiving and sending data, it could connect only to one network device at a time. Let's assume that you have three users, each with their device connected to the WiFi broadcast by the router. The router can send and receive data only to the first user. When it is done with the first user, it goes to the second user and then to the third.
SU-MIMO or 1x1 MU-MIMO wireless transfers
SU-MIMO or 1x1 MU-MIMO wireless transfers
The number of simultaneous data streams is limited by the minimum number of antennas in use. If your router has four antennas, in SU-MIMO, you can have up to four data streams simultaneously. For example, a wireless router that can transmit or receive on two antennas can handle two users simultaneously. A router with four antennas can handle four separate streams and up to four clients simultaneously. Since on many WiFi networks you have multiple wireless clients that are connected, each requesting access to their data stream, the router acts like a machine gun mounted to a merry-go-round. It rattles off bits of data very quickly to multiple devices in turn. Each device waits its turn to send and receive data, so when a new device connects, the line and the wait become longer. Therefore, the more devices you connect to a wireless router that is using SU-MIMO, the bigger the latency becomes and the less speed you get for each device.
