• Comtrend’s new PG-9182AC G.hn/Wi-Fi Extender provides whole-home Wi-Fi service, avoiding the signal degradation caused by walls and the high latency typically introduced in Wi-Fi mesh solutions

LAS VEGAS — (BUSINESS WIRE) — January 9, 2018 — CES – MaxLinear Inc. (NYSE: MXL), a leading provider of radio frequency (RF) and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the connected home, wired and wireless infrastructure, and industrial and multimarket applications, today announced that Comtrend Corp. has selected its powerline G.hn Wave-2 networking chipset for a new Wi-Fi extender that addresses the North American service provider market.

Most service providers today face the challenge of providing whole-home Wi-Fi service to broadband subscribers with increasing bandwidth demands. Consumers expect strong Wi-Fi everywhere in their homes in order to provide connectivity to a growing number of Internet-connected devices such as smart TVs, smart phones, tablets, gaming devices, voice-enabled assistants and a wide array of IoT products.

Using G.hn as a wired backbone for distributed Wi-Fi extenders is becoming a popular solution in the carrier market. This video-centric market is demanding quality of service (QoS) requirements that often cannot be met by Wi-Fi mesh solutions available in the retail market. G.hn technology delivers a more stable connectivity solution than pure wireless and further reduces wireless spectrum congestion by off-loading traffic to a wired network. Additionally, it provides configurable QoS assurance, TR-069 remote management and enables safer firmware upgrading.

The Comtrend PG-9182AC uses MaxLinear’s G.hn Wave-2 chipset (88LX5152 baseband and 88LX2720 analog front-end) and includes a high-performance, dual-band concurrent 802.11ac radio in a 2x2 MIMO configuration. The complete offering includes the PG-9182PT G.hn/Ethernet adapter that is designed to be plugged in near the user’s broadband router.

“Comtrend is one of the leading vendors providing high-performance distributed Wi-Fi solutions for the carrier market, and we value the trust they have in MaxLinear technology for their latest 802.11ac G.hn/Wi-Fi extender products,” said Will Torgerson, Vice President & General Manager of the Broadband Group for MaxLinear. “Previous generations of Comtrend G.hn/Wi-Fi extenders have been tremendously successful in the carrier market, and we are confident this product will continue this trend.”

“New applications like 4K video, cloud storage, real-time gaming, video streaming and voice-activated assistants are pushing the limits of today’s home networks. Our carrier customers are demanding solutions that can scale to handle these applications, while having enough headroom to support future services like cloud-based gaming and VR/AR,” said Frank Chuang, Vice President of Marketing for Comtrend. “By using MaxLinear’s G.hn platform, we ensure we meet our customer requirements today, while having the flexibility to adapt to new requirements in the future.”

Both the PG-9182AC and the PG-9182PT are FCC compliant, UL compliant and include a pass-through socket that ensures users do not lose access to any of their power sockets. The adapters include optional support for TR-069 remote management, configuration, and can be firmware-upgraded remotely.

Comtrend’s PG-9182AC and PG-9182PT will be displayed at MaxLinear's CES demo suite. To view a demonstration of these products, please contact a MaxLinear sales representative or send an email to sales@maxlinear.com.

About Comtrend

Founded in 1990, Comtrend is a leading designer and manufacturer of broadband communication equipment. In 2002, Comtrend distinguished itself in North America by joining the IPTV revolution for telephone service providers. At that time, video over DSL was fraught with quality issues based on the emerging standards, outside plant quality, and interoperability issues. Since that time, Comtrend and the many flavors of DSL have become stable partners to hundreds of service providers worldwide. As new technologies evolved, Comtrend’s broadband gateways have faithfully kept the lead. Today, whether a customer is connected via fiber, cable, satellite, or DSL, a Comtrend gateway will facilitate the fastest connections while integrating TR-069 manageability. This software technology serves as the backbone to all tiers of service providers, allowing management of tens of thousands of customer premises equipment.

From 2010 to the present day, Comtrend has continually grown its product lineup, bringing broadband beyond the gateway. Residential and business users seeking easier ways to extend their networks, whether wirelessly or through a hard-wire connection, now have Comtrend traversing power and phone lines, cable, and wireless. It is apparent today that homes and offices of all sizes cross over to deploy similar technologies.

For more information please visit www.comtrend.com.

About MaxLinear, Inc.

MaxLinear, Inc. (NYSE: MXL), a leading provider of radio frequency (RF), analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits for the connected home, wired and wireless infrastructure, and industrial and multimarket applications. MaxLinear is headquartered in Carlsbad, California. For more information, please visit www.maxlinear.com.

MxL and the MaxLinear logo are trademarks of MaxLinear, Inc. Other trademarks appearing herein are the property of their respective owners.