Every day, millions of people around the world use WiFi. The most popular wireless data transmission technology simplifies Internet access for more than two decades, but it has not changed at all in this time.
In October 2018, the WiFi Alliance announced the complete unification of the standard, presenting new icons and a simpler name and a new naming convention.
In addition, the next generation of WiFi connectivity, known as WiFi 6, based on 802.11ax technology was introduced.
Today we will talk about this new Wifi 6, what features it has and what are the new features it will offer to users.
New names for WiFi
The incomprehensible names of different Wi-Fi generations are rightly considered the main problem that confuses ordinary consumers. People have no idea what the combinations of numbers and lowercase letters, such as 802.11 or / b / g / n / ac, mean. In the new name Wi-Fi there are no difficulties – now the designation is only a figure.
The rebranding will affect not only future versions of WiFi but also obsolete ones. Consequently, Wi-Fi 802.11n (version- 2009) will become Wi-Fi 4, the current Wi-Fi 802.11ac (version- 2014) in Wi-Fi 5 and the new WiFi 802.11ax (the certification will take place before end 2019) will be Wi-Fi 6. It looks laconic and simpler, doesn’t it? In fact, a completely different perception.
The complete list looks like this:
- Wi-Fi 802.11a (1999) – Wi-Fi 1;
- Wi-Fi 802.11b (1999) – Wi-Fi 2;
- Wi-Fi 802.11g (2003) – Wi-Fi 3;
- Wi-Fi 802.11n (2009) – Wi-Fi 4;
- Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2014) – Wi-Fi 5;
- Wi-Fi 802.11 ax (2019) – Wi-Fi 6.
What does WiFi 6 offer?
First, WiFi 6 focuses on increasing bandwidth and improving spectral efficiency in dense environments. This is great news, as ever faster and more stable Internet is constantly required, especially now that we consume an incredible number of applications every day, play online games, watch high definition videos and use various streaming services.
Speed: Wi-Fi 6 will provide the maximum speed up to 9.6 Gbps, three times faster than the current Wi-Fi 5 (3.5 Gbps). But the reality is that both these speeds are only theoretical maximums that are unlikely to reach with normal WiFi at home. Even if you reach it, it is still not clear to what purposes it will be necessary. For example, the typical download speed in the United States is 72 Mbps, which is less than 1% of the entire theoretical maximum speed.
On the other hand, this is a rather important improvement. According to the forecasts of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), by 2022 with the development of the Internet of Things (Internet of Things, IoT), the average number of devices connected to the Internet in a home will be about 50 (currently up to 10). Since Wi-Fi 6 will receive a higher speed limit, the 9.6 Gbit / s separation for all smartphones connected to the network, tablets, computers and other equipment will lead to greater potential speed for each of them.
Autonomy: The Wi-Fi 6 Target Wake Time (TWT) wake-time target technology will allow the access point to determine the specific access time to the support during information exchange between the client and the router. The function support will reduce the overall power consumption of the network and consequently reduce the consumption of the equipment battery.
For the most part, TWT technology support is intended for devices of the Internet of Things category, however, it does not negate the usefulness of innovation.
Security: In 2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance introduced WPA3, the largest Wi-Fi security protocol update in the past 14 years. Devices that use WPA3, will be resistant to the most popular method of hacking by brute force when a hacker attempts to collect a password with all valid character combinations. Security is guaranteed by a new SAE authentication mechanism (Simultaneous of Equal Authentication of Equals) with advanced encryption.
It is also noteworthy that support for the WPA3 security protocol is a prerequisite for Wi-Fi 6 certification.
In addition to the technical improvements described above, Wi-Fi 6 will support the new multi-user technologies MU-MIMO and OFDMA.
The first allows the router to exchange data with multiple devices at the same time rather than transmitting one at a time. At the moment, MU-MIMO supports data exchange with four devices, with Wi-Fi 6 the number will increase to eight. The second is a multiple access with orthogonal frequency division channels. In a nutshell, OFDMA individually checks the data rate and the probability of errors for each user on the network.
Wi-Fi unification should help manufacturers more easily promote proprietary hardware. It is no longer necessary to ask what is better “ac” or “n”, instead it will be enough to concentrate on the number, obviously, the higher, the more modern.
The Wi-Fi Alliance also hopes the new name goes beyond the hardware. Therefore, in the future, when connecting to a Wi-Fi network, the router will indicate the version of the connection, so you can easily choose a newer wireless technology standard.
It is expected that the first devices with support for Wi-Fi 6 will appear on the market at the beginning of 2020. They will be labeled accordingly.
| version | Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) | Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) |
Supported frequencies |
5 GHz | 2.4 GHz / 5 GHz |
| Channel bandwidth | 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, 160 MHz | 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, 160 MHz |
| FFT size |
64, 128, 256, 512 | 256.512, 1.024, 2.048 |
| Subcarrier spacing | 312.5 kHz | 78.125 kHz |
| Duration of the OFDM symbol |
3.2 μs + 0.8 / 0.4 μs | 12.8 μs + 0.8 / 1.6 / 3.2 μs |
| modulation | 256-QAM | 1024-QAM |
| The speed of data transmission |
433 Mbit / s (80 MHz, 1 software); 6 933 Mbit / s (160 MHz, 8 PP) |
600.4 Mbit / s (80 MHz, 1 PP); 9 607.8 Mbit / s (160 MHz, 8 PP) |
