What is Wi-Fi 6 and How is it Different From Wi-Fi 5?

[Dustin_V]

Wi-Fi 6, or 802.11ax, is the next generation of wireless standard, succeeding 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5). With the increased number of connected devices entering our homes, Wi-Fi 6 technology addresses your home’s need to keep up with the volume without affecting performance. By providing improved network capacity, your wireless experience will be smoother and more enjoyable with ultra-fast speeds, greater coverage, reliable connections.

As NETGEAR entered the Wi-Fi 6 world with the introduction of NETGEAR’s AX Routers, the Nighthawk AX8 and Nighthawk AX12, we look to lead the new era of Wi-Fi. These high-performance routers provide improvements in throughput allowing more data to be transmitted per data packet, multi-device support, and Wi-Fi spectrum efficiency for streaming, gaming, and media sharing. For homes with Gigabit internet, the recently announced Orbi Wi-Fi System with Wi-Fi 6 not only will benefit from the same features, but it will also help provide Gigabit Wi-Fi coverage across every room of your home.

Additional features include:

Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA)

Multi-User MIMO

Data Efficiency with 1024 QAM

Target Wake Time

Dual-Band Technology

Backwards Compatibility with Previous Wi-Fi Standards

To learn more about Wi-Fi 6, please visit:

https://kb.netgear.com/000059637/How-is-Wi-Fi-6-different-from-Wi-Fi-5

To learn more about NETGEAR Routers with AX Wi-Fi:

https://www.netgear.com/landings/ax-wifi/

[myersw]

One BIG question. Why doesn't Netgear release wireless adapters for PC's when they are shipping Wi-Fi 6 routers? Having a Wi-Fi 6 router doesn't provide much for users who currently are using AC. Yes the router will do back support, but there is no adapters to make use of the new standard and Netgear the RAX 80 is on the market. Shame on Netgear!!! 

[duckware]

SHAME on Netgear for claiming that the RAX80 is 8 stream (it only has four antennas so four spatial streams) and that the RAX120 is 12 stream (it only has eight antennas so eight spatial streams).  Netgear has redefined what "spatial stream" means in order to do that.