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OK so what is this top picture? The Bottle Top antenna?
Nope - it is a highly sophisticated, steerable beam antenna. The Wireless-N standard has provision for a rarely implemented feature called Beam Forming. In a nutshell, it says if you know what direction the incoming signal is coming from, you can 'steer' the transmitted packets back to the same direction.
This antenna has an array of 7 separate antennas (the vertical columns). If a station (i.e. client unit) is offset at an angle, the WiFi packets will arrive at each antenna at slightly different times. If you record the delay between arrivals, you can use that information to transmit back to that same station at the same angle.
By doing this - this antenna simulates having a bunch of 24 dBi antennas on a pole; one per station. And each 24 dBi antenna is pointed at one station.
This antenna has been given the name AirBeam. It is a 90-degree sector, with virtual 16 degree 24 dBi antennas.
The new Rocket to match the AirBeam (expand the picture at the left) has LEDs on the front showing the signal direction.
Cute!
Availability: Unannounced. We would guess in 6 months.
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