  Feasible distribution of quantum entanglement over long distances remains a
fundamental step towards quantum secure communication and quantum network
implementations. Quantum repeater nodes based on quantum memories promise to
overcome exponential signal decay inherent to optical implementations of
quantum communication. While performance of current quantum memories hinders
their practical application, multimode solutions with multiplexing can offer
tremendous increase in entanglement distribution rates. We propose to use a
wavevector-multiplexed atomic quantum memory (WV-MUX-QM) as a fundamental block
of a multiplexed quantum repeater architecture. We show the WV-MUX-QM platform
to provide quasi-deterministic entanglement generation over extended distances,
mitigating the fundamental issue of optical loss even with currently available
quantum memory devices, and exceeding performance of repeaterless solutions as
well as other repeater-based protocols such as temporal multiplexing. We
establish the entangled-bit (ebit) rate per number of employed nodes as a
practical figure of merit reflecting the cost-efficiency of larger inter-node
distances.
