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What is Wi-Fi 6?

Published in WiFi Technology 3 mins read

Wi-Fi 6 is the latest generation of Wi-Fi technology, offering faster speeds, increased capacity, and improved performance in congested environments compared to previous standards. It's a significant upgrade that enhances your wireless experience.

Key Features and Benefits of Wi-Fi 6

Wi-Fi 6, formally known as 802.11ax, brings several advancements over Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and older standards. These improvements translate to a more efficient and enjoyable wireless experience for users.

  • Increased Speed: Wi-Fi 6 theoretically allows for speeds up to 9.6 Gbps, although real-world speeds are usually lower, they are still significantly faster than Wi-Fi 5. This is particularly noticeable when multiple devices are connected.
  • Improved Capacity: Wi-Fi 6 utilizes technologies like Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA), which allows routers to communicate with multiple devices simultaneously. This greatly improves network capacity and reduces congestion, especially in homes or offices with many connected devices.
  • Target Wake Time (TWT): TWT allows devices to schedule when they wake up to transmit or receive data. This significantly reduces power consumption, extending the battery life of your smartphones, laptops, and IoT devices.
  • Better Performance in Dense Environments: OFDMA and other enhancements make Wi-Fi 6 better at handling interference and congestion in environments with many wireless devices.
  • Improved Security: Wi-Fi 6 incorporates Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3), the latest security protocol, which provides stronger encryption and authentication, making your network more secure against hacking attempts. This includes Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE), which replaces the older Pre-Shared Key (PSK) method and provides better protection against brute-force attacks.
  • Uplink and Downlink OFDMA: Allows for more efficient use of available bandwidth.

Understanding the Technologies

  • OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access): Think of OFDMA as dividing a delivery truck (Wi-Fi channel) into smaller packages. Instead of sending one large package (data) to one recipient at a time, the truck can deliver multiple smaller packages to multiple recipients simultaneously.
  • Beamforming: This technology focuses the Wi-Fi signal towards specific devices instead of broadcasting it in all directions. This results in a stronger, more reliable connection.
  • MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output): While MU-MIMO was present in Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6 improves upon it, allowing more devices to receive data simultaneously.

Wi-Fi 6 vs. Wi-Fi 6E

It's important to distinguish between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E. Wi-Fi 6E expands upon Wi-Fi 6 by utilizing the 6 GHz band, which offers more channels and less interference. This leads to even faster speeds and lower latency. However, to utilize Wi-Fi 6E, you need devices and routers that support the 6 GHz band.

How to Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6

To take advantage of Wi-Fi 6, you need a Wi-Fi 6 router and devices (laptops, smartphones, etc.) that also support Wi-Fi 6. Even if some of your devices are older, upgrading your router to Wi-Fi 6 can still provide benefits to those devices, particularly in congested network environments. They can still connect using the older Wi-Fi standards supported by the router alongside Wi-Fi 6.

Summary

Wi-Fi 6 is a substantial upgrade to previous Wi-Fi standards, offering increased speed, capacity, security, and efficiency, making it a worthwhile investment for homes and businesses with a growing number of connected devices.