n-hop technologies is a Hong Kong technology startup based on fundamental research. The main founders of n-hop are Raymond Yeung and Shenghao Yang, professors at the Hong Kong and Shenzhen campuses respectively of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Prof. Yeung is a founder of the field of network coding. Network coding is a paradigm shift in network communication introduced by Prof. Yeung and his collaborators in 2000. Instead of routing data through a communication network like a commodity, network coding increases the network throughput by recoding data inside the network. The gain of network coding over routing is unbounded.

Network coding explained in layman terms on Youtube: How internet communication works: Network Coding

A world-renowned researcher, Prof. Yeung’s textbook Information Theory and Network Coding has been adopted by over 100 universities around the world.  

Prof. Shenghao Yang invented BATS with Prof. Raymond Yeung in 2011. Their book BATS Codes: Theory and Practice is the standard reference on the subject. Here is a tutorial on BATS:

BATS is an important step toward realizing the potential of network coding. In a wireless multi-hop network, with existing technologies, the transmission throughput drops drastically when the number of hops exceeds 5 or 6, due to the accumulation of packet loss. BATS is a revolutionary network coding technology that can break this “multi-hop curse.” With BATS, the throughput can sustain after tens of even hundreds of hops.