What is WiFi 6 and How Will it Affect Me?

What are the Advantages of WiFi 6?

WiFi 6 is more than just a new name and a set of labeling conventions. There are many significant improvements that are incorporated into WiFi 6 that will make it much more useful to wireless users around the world. Let’s take a closer look at some of the advantages of using WiFi 6 technology.

Greater data transfer speed

Each generation of WiFi has provided greater data transfer speed and WiFi 6 is no exception. The theoretical speed of WiFi 6 is 10Gbps. It achieves this speed increase by combining the 2.4GHx and 5GHz spectrum bands and employing MU-MIMO technology for both uplink and downlink data transfers.

More efficient data encoding leads to the higher throughput. More powerful chips used to encode and decode signals allow more data to be carried by the same radio waves. A single device can achieve up to 40% faster data transfer when using WiFi 6 versus WiFi 5. Even 2.4GHz networks will experience increased speeds when using a WiFi 6 router.

Increased battery life

Another important benefit afforded by the move to WiFi 6 is the increased battery life that devices accessing a WiFi 6 network will enjoy. This improvement is beneficial to the average user and can be a critical factor in enabling low-power devices that comprise the Internet of Things (IoT) to make use of WiFi communication.

Battery life is extended through a feature known as target wake time (TWT). TWT enables the WiFi access point to communicate with your device to tell it when exactly to turn its WiFi radio to wake up and go to sleep. This helps conserve power as your device will spend more time in sleep mode than with previous WiFi implementations.

Better performance in congested settings

One of the ways that WiFi performance can be negatively affected is when it is used in crowded areas where there is competition for the signal. WiFi 6 employs a number of new technologies to increase the utility of WiFi by minimizing the problems of network congestion.

One way this is accomplished is with a technology known as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). This allows a wireless channel to be divided into a number of sub-channels that can each be used to carry data for a different device. This allows a single access point to communicate with more devices simultaneously.

Improvements in Multiple In/Multiple Out (MIMO) capabilities now allow a router with multiple antennas to both send and receive data transmissions from multiple devices at the same time. WiFi 5 could only send, but not receive multiple signals at once. This will lead to better performance in situations where many users are attempting to access the network.

Improvements in beamforming are also part of the WiFi 6 standard. Beamforming focuses a stronger signal in the direction of connected devices rather than broadcasting at the same level in all directions. The router attempts to optimize the signals that it sends to a specific device.

These are some of the ways that WiFi 6 alleviates the problems of accessing WiFi in congested settings such as sports arenas or entertainment venues. It promises to make connecting to wireless networks more efficient no matter where you are located.

Stronger Security

All WiFi 6-certified devices must support Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3), the newest security standard for wireless networks. The standard replaces WPA2, which suffers from several vulnerabilities, some of which can be used to intercept and steal transmitted data.

WPA3 addresses the weaknesses of WPA2 by replacing the authentication method referred to as the pre-shared key (PSK) exchange with a much stronger authentication method, called the Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (SAE) exchange.

SAE is used in WPA3-Personal mode together with AES-128 WiFi encryption. In WPA3-Enterprise mode, multiple Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) methods are used instead, and they’re optionally paired with 192-bit WiFi encryption.

In addition to personal and enterprise networks, WPA3 also helps improve the wireless network security of open WiFi networks, such as those found in airports, by providing unauthenticated data encryption using the Wi-Fi Enhanced Open wireless encryption standard.

Should I Consider Upgrading to WiFi 6?

Here are some factors to consider if you are thinking about upgrading to WiFi 6:

Equipment upgrades are necessary — You will obviously need a new router at some point. If you already have multiple devices that support WiFi 6, such as smartphones, laptops, and smart home gadgets, then it makes a lot of sense to purchase a router that supports the WiFi standard so that you can use them to their full potential. If you don’t have any WiFi 6 device, then there’s no rush since you wouldn’t be able to enjoy any real benefits.

An increasing number of wireless devices — As the number of wireless-capable devices in the average household increases, the benefits of employing a WiFi 6 network are more evident. If you plan on implementing smart home technology or just want to be prepared for future growth, your next router purchase should be a device of the WiFi 6 variety.

If you are satisfied with your current WiFi network and its performance, you should file away the WiFi 6 information for when you are preparing for your next purchase. Perhaps you will be faced with WiFi 7 as an option by then.

A good route to follow if you are considering an upgrade is to conduct a detailed WiFi site survey of your current WiFi network and its coverage area. Using a dedicated WiFi analysis tool like NetSpot will help you find issues with your WiFi network as well as plan for a new implementation. It’s a great tool for anyone who is responsible for maintaining a wireless network.

What Is WiFi 7? Meet the Newest WiFi Standard

If you’ve been paying attention when reading this article, then you’ve probably noticed that WiFi 6 (or even WiFi 6E — its 6 GHz sibling) isn’t the newest WiFi standard. That honor goes to WiFi 7, or IEEE 802.11be Extremely High Throughput (EHT).

The catch is that WiFi 7 hasn’t been released yet, and we’re still waiting for the announcement of the WiFi 7 release date. What we do know is that WiFi 7 will use the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz frequency bands and deliver speeds of up to 30 Gbps, rivaling today’s wired connections.

The massive performance boost that’s expected to be delivered by WiFi 7 can be attributed to better utilization of non-contiguous spectrum, enhanced Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) protocols, Multi-Access Point (AP) Coordination, 4096-QAM, and several other proposed features.