Wi-Fi 6: Everything You Need To Know
The news is a-buzz with Wi-Fi 6, the newest, fastest, most reliable wireless solution. But what exactly is it, and is it something you need to implement for your organization?
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) develops the global standards for several industries, including power and energy, information technology, telecommunications, nanotechnology, and many others.
The IEEE 802.11ac is a wireless networking standard within the 802.11 family. These standards are commercially known as Wi-Fi and make up the wireless local area networks (WLANs) using the 5 GHz band.
Until recently, 802.11ac was the most up-to-date wireless networking solution, known colloquially as Wi-Fi 5. It’s what enables the network’s computers, laptops, printers, and smartphones to communicate and access the Internet without wires (read: wirelessly).
Read about some big changes in networking in our recent whitepaper.
The release of 802.11ax – or Wi-Fi 6 – marks a swift shift in wireless networking. It is, theoretically, dramatically faster than Wi-Fi 5, offering the same basic service – Internet connectivity – at 9.6 Gbps (that’s 3.5 Gbps faster than Wi-Fi 5). Whether you’d ever reach or need that speed is debatable; the Verge notes a typical download speed in the US is just 72 Mbps.
It’s Faster … For The Network
The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the implementation of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policies at businesses around the world means a huge increase in the number of devices connecting to the network. Wi-Fi 6’s increase in speed will enable improved network connectivity for all those devices vying for network juice.
A lot of the technological advances that make Wi-Fi 6 viable come down to router technology. Routers are now able to communicate to multiple devices concurrently and check-in with devices at scheduled intervals.
As Cisco notes in their recent white paper, Wi-Fi 6 is possible because of the following three vector advances:
If that sounds a bit like gobbledygook to you, you’re not alone. Thankfully, our writers have brilliant Solutions Architects working closely with them at Mindsight who translated this in no time.
It’s faster because the communications between routers and the Internet are designed to optimize connections for multi-device efficiency.
While an individual Wi-Fi 6-enabled laptop connecting to a Wi-Fi 6 router won’t be worth writing home about, the enormous growth of home networks will demand the speed boosts offered by Wi-Fi 6.
Think about it.
