What is WiFi 6?
WiFi 6, or 802.11ax, is the latest WiFi standard designed to improve your WiFi experience and meet the growing demands of WiFi by increasing performance and connected capacity. Where previous standards addressed and improved WiFi speeds, WiFi 6’s focus is more on alleviating capacity and congestion.
Significant key features include
- Delivering up to 4X connected capacity than previous generations
- Up to 12 simultaneous WiFi streams providing more speeds & range
- Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access, or OFDMA, which significantly increases efficiency by delivering and receiving data to and from multiple devices at the same time
What does the term “WiFi 6” Mean?
802.11ax’s naming convention of WiFi 6 is the WiFi Alliance’s answer to provide users with an easy to understand designation of WiFi technology. Previous generations will also receive such designations to indicate those generations and technology. Here’s a breakdown of the numerical sequence:
WiFi 6 – Identifies 802.11ax technology
WiFi 5 – Identifies 802.11ac technology
WiFi 4 – Identifies 802.11n technology
What is OFDMA?
OFDMA enables your router and devices to use your bandwidth more efficiently by reducing the time between data transmissions. As a result, more bandwidth is available for other devices.
Connected capacity refers to the number of devices connected to your WiFi network. With previous generations, as more and more devices connected, performance of you network would tend to degrade due to the amount of data being transferred between your router and devices. By increasing connected capacity, WiFi 6 routers are able to handle 4X the number of devices from previous generations.
When Will WiFi 6 End Devices be Available?
Today’s end devices that support WiFi 6 range from smart phones, to laptops, to WiFi cards. Industry leaders like Samsung and Apple both introduced their Samsung S10 and iPhone 11 lineups with WiFi 6 support. Additional companies that have announced WiFi 6 support for their products include Intel, Lenovo, Acer, Alienware, HP, MSI and more.
