# Does Apple us 2x2 or 3x3 MIMO in their 802.11ac clients?



## ldphoto (Jul 9, 2009)

I'm in the midst of a network reconfig, and I'm trying to find out whether the 802.11ac clients built in to the new airs and iMacs (and presumably the upcoming MBP) support 3x3 MIMO or are limited to 2x2.

There are a number of high-end routers that support 3x3, but I have yet to see a client (whether internal or USB) that supports 3x3. It may be pointless to get a 3x3 router if there aren't any clients that can take advantage of it, since I will keep the 802.11n network segregated to support older devices.

If there information here is correct and up to date, there are no laptop 802.11 chipsets that support three spatial streams: IEEE 802.11ac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## IllusionX (Mar 10, 2009)

BCM94360CD is a 3x3:3 802.11ac Mini-PCIe adapter.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

Take a look at the Ubiquiti stuff. They've got some powerful and relatively low cost access points (routers would be separate) for 802.11ac and 802.11n.

UniFi | Ubiquiti Networks, Inc.

Available in Canada from UBNT.ca


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## ldphoto (Jul 9, 2009)

John Clay said:


> Take a look at the Ubiquiti stuff. They've got some powerful and relatively low cost access points (routers would be separate) for 802.11ac and 802.11n.
> 
> UniFi | Ubiquiti Networks, Inc.
> 
> Available in Canada from UBNT.ca


Thanks for the suggestion; I'll have to look into those. It's a bit of a shame that the AC models don't have external antenna connectors, because 28 dBm of Tx power is pretty good for ac.


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