The WI-FI 6 The solution to the congestion of our routers! Details here

Wi-Fi is about to get faster. This is great news: a faster internet connection is something we've been hoping for for so long, especially as we consume more bandwidth-hungry apps, games and videos with our laptops, phones, smart TVs with 4K Netflix subscriptions and of course music listening on network players. But it's not just the speed that counts, the stability of the signals remains paramount. WI-FI is like a mini radio, when there are several of them in the same area, the waves end up intermingling and causing unwanted disconnections, you know? If you've ever had problems connecting to your Wi-Fi network, chances are that spectrum congestion is the problem. Whenever you have too many devices trying to connect on the same frequency band, some devices will start to get offloaded. So if you see a long list of nearby Wi-Fi networks in your area, this may be why your interconnection is becoming slower and less reliable. There are simply too many competing signals for your router to pass.

 Let's look at what WI-FI 6 is.

Wi-Fi 6 is just starting to arrive this year (JANUARY 2021), and there's a good chance it will be in your next phone or laptop. Here's what to expect when it arrives.

1 - WHAT IS WI-FI 6?

Wi-Fi 6 is the next generation of Wi-Fi. It will still do the same basic thing - connect you to the internet - just with a bunch of extra technology to make it happen more efficiently, speeding up connections in the process.

2 - HOW FAST IS IT?

The short, but incomplete answer: 9.6 Gbit/s. Or almost triple the 3.5 Gbit/s on the Wi-Fi 5 it replaces.

But the fact that Wi-Fi 6 has a much higher theoretical speed limit than its predecessor is important. That 9.6 Gbps doesn't have to go to a single device and application. It can be spread across a whole network of devices. This means more potential speed for each device without slowing down each other. Instead of increasing the speed of individual devices, Wi-Fi 6 aims to improve the network when a group of devices is connected.

This is an important goal, and it comes at an important time: when Wi-Fi 5 was released (2014), the average household had about five Wi-Fi devices. Today, households have an average of nine Wi-Fi devices, and various experts have predicted that we will reach an average of 50 within a few years...

These added devices put a strain on your network. Your current router can only communicate with so many devices at once, so the more gadgets require Wi-Fi, the slower the network as a whole will become. Examples of gadgets: Smart thermostat, garage door opener, lighting controlled from your smartphone, it's not just audio-video applications!

Wi-Fi 6 introduces new technologies to help alleviate the problems associated with having dozens of Wi-Fi devices on a single network. It allows routers to communicate with multiple devices at once, allows routers to send data to multiple devices in the same broadcast and allows Wi-Fi devices to schedule check-ins with the router. Together, these features should maintain strong connections even as more and more devices begin to demand data.

3 - WI-FI 6 A NEW NAME TO BETTER COMPARE.

Until recently, Wi-Fi generations were referred to by an obscure naming scheme that required you to understand whether 802.11n was faster than 802.11aC, and whether 802.11aC was faster than 802.11af. Most people didn't understand this when they read about it on the box of the new router to buy.

To solve this problem, the Wi-Fi Alliance decided to rename the Wi-Fi generations with simple version numbers. Thus, the current generation of Wi-Fi, 802.11 ac, has been transformed into Wi-Fi 5. This new generation, previously called 802.11ax, is now Wi-Fi 6.

You probably won't hear much use of the name Wi-Fi 5 as it has been around since 2014 but only just received the name in October 2018. For Wi-Fi 6, you can see the name 802.11ax here and there, but companies seem to be largely on board with using the simplified generation-based naming scheme.

If we renamed the old versions, this is what it would look like.

• Wi-Fi 1 / launched in 1999 = Version name 802.11 b, theoretical speed 11 Mbit/sec.
• WI-FI 2 / END 1999 Version name 802.11a, theoretical speed 54 Mbits/sec.
• WI-FI 3 / launched in 2003 = version name 802.11g theoretical speed 54 Mbits/sec increase in the number of simultaneous users.
• WI-FI 4 / launched in 2009 = Version name 802.11 n theoretical speed 600 Mbit/sec + increase in the number of simultaneous users (MIMO).
• WI-FI 5 / launched in 2014 = Version name 802.11 aC theoretical speed 1300 Mbit/1.3Gbits.
• WI-FI 6 / 2021 = Version name 802.11ax theoretical speed 7100 Mbit/7.1Gbits !!!

4 - DEVICES ARE MORE LIKELY TO MAINTAIN FAST SPEEDS ON BUSY NETWORKS

The story is starting to change as more and more devices are added to your network. Where current routers can start to get overwhelmed by the demands of a multitude of devices, Wi-Fi 6 routers will be designed to more efficiently keep all these devices up to date with the data they need.

The speed of each of these devices won't necessarily be faster than what they can achieve today on a high-quality network, but they are more likely to maintain those maximum speeds even in busier environments. You can imagine this being useful in a house where one person is watching Netflix, another is playing a video game, someone else is having a live video chat, and a bunch of smart gadgets are all registering at the same time (e.g. a door lock, temperature sensors, light switches, etc.) The old routers can't take it anymore...

The maximum speeds of these devices will not necessarily be increased, but the speeds you see in typical day-to-day use will probably benefit from better stability. And why? Let's remember that when a computerised device sends a request to a server, if the response doesn't come at the expected speed, the device will freeze, we've seen it many times! The demanding bandwidth of 8K TVs without a good signal, the quality degrades.

5 - HOW TO GET WI-FI 6?

A: You will have to buy new equipment, simple question, but flat answer!

Wi-Fi generations depend on new hardware, not just software updates, so you will need to buy new phones, laptops, etc. to get the new Wi-Fi version.

So gradually, your equipment will be replaced by better ones, you just have to make sure that your new acquisitions are equipped with them.

6 - A WI-FI ROUTER 6, THE FIRST STEP

New devices will start to ship with Wi-Fi 6 by default. As you replace your phone, laptop and games consoles over the next five years, you'll bring home new ones that include the latest version of Wi-Fi. Don't worry, WI-FI 5 devices will still work on new routers, it is backwards compatible.

There is one thing you should make a point of buying though: a new router. Indeed, to benefit from the increased speed and fluidity, the router remains the basis!

It may not be something worth rushing out and buying, but if your home is full of Wi-Fi connected smart devices and things are starting to slow down, a Wi-Fi 6 router may be able to help significantly.

7 - WHAT MAKES WI-FI 6 FASTER?

There are two key technologies that accelerate Wi-Fi 6 interconnections: MU-MIMO and OFDMA.

Firstly, MU-MIMO, which stands for "multiple users, multiple inputs, multiple outputs", is already in use in modern routers and devices since WI-FI 3, but Wi-Fi 6 upgrades it.

The technology allows a router to communicate with multiple devices at the same time, rather than broadcasting to one device, then the next, and the next. Currently, MU-MIMO allows routers to communicate with four devices at once. The Wi-Fi 6 upgrade will allow devices to communicate with up to eight.

In simple terms, eight times less latency than the original system called "time sharing

Secondly, the other new technology, OFDMA, which stands for "orthogonal frequency division multiple access", allows a single transmission to deliver data to several devices at once.

In simple terms, when a data packet is required and there is space left in the data sentence, the router adds part of the data from one device to a second and so on. Each device then picks up what is allocated to it from a single data transmission instead of having to wait for a second sequence/phrase. Work sharing speeds up the whole process.

In practice, all of this is used to make the most of every transmission that carries a Wi-Fi signal from a router to your device. A superior gaming experience.

8 - WI-FI 6 CAN ALSO IMPROVE THE LIFE OF YOUR BATTERIES.

Another new technology in Wi-Fi 6 allows devices to schedule communications with a router, reducing the time they need to keep their antennas powered up to transmit and search for signals. This means less drain on batteries and longer life for battery-powered devices.

This new feature is called "Target Wake Time", which allows routers to schedule authentication times with devices.

Cell phones and laptops need to keep in touch all the time, so it's not so much these that will benefit, instead this feature will be more for smaller, already low-power Wi-Fi devices that just need to update their status from time to time. (Think of the small sensors placed around a house to monitor things like leaks or smart home devices that sit unused most of the day. 

9 - WI-FI 6 ALSO MEANS BETTER SECURITY

Last year, Wi-Fi began to get its biggest security upgrade in a decade, with a new security protocol called WPA3. WPA3 makes it harder for hackers to crack passwords, and it makes some data less useful even if hackers manage to get it.

Current devices and routers can support WPA3, but this is optional. For a device to be Wi-Fi 6 certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, WPA3 is mandatory by design, so all Wi-Fi 6 devices will include the enhanced security once the certification programme starts. 

10 - WI-FI 6 IS JUST BEGINNING

Devices supporting Wi-Fi 6 are just starting to come out. You can already buy Wi-Fi 6 routers, but so far they are the expensive high-end devices.

Wi-Fi 6 will start arriving on high-end phones first. Qualcomm's new processor, the Snapdragon 855, supports Wi-Fi 6 and is aimed at the next wave of high-end phones. Samsung's Galaxy S10 was one of the first phones with the new processor, and it supports the latest generation of Wi-Fi.

The inclusion of Wi-Fi 6 is likely to become even more common next year. The Wi-Fi Alliance will launch its Wi-Fi 6 certification programme this year, which ensures compatibility between Wi-Fi devices. Devices do not need to pass this certification, but its launch will mean that the industry is ready for the arrival of Wi-Fi 6. The connected home of tomorrow...

 11 - TWO WI-FI 6 IS THIS THE CASE?

Two versions of WI-FI 6 will be available: WI-FI 6 and WI-FI 6.

In order not to confuse everyone, here is what you should remember *** :

WI-FI 6 is everything you have read so far. The "six" operates on the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio bands. Like all routers up to now.

The new "six E." adds a third higher frequency band operating at 6 GHz.

Imagine the radio here, there is CKMF on 94.3 kHz, CKOI on 96.9 kHz and CHOM on 97.7 kHz. Each has its own frequency so you can tune to one instead of the other. It's the same thing with our router, when there are too many people on the same frequencies, it doesn't work anymore...

6 GHz Wi-Fi [6E] can go a long way to solving this problem. Not only does it offer a new waveband for routers to use, but a spacious band that does not require overlapping signals like some current Wi-Fi channels. The new spectrum has room for up to seven maximum capacity Wi-Fi streams to broadcast simultaneously and not interfere with each other, all without using any of the previously available frequencies.  

12 - WI-FI 6 E [for Extended] WILL OFFER MORE PERFORMANCE.

Since this new frequency is not widely used, people who buy a router with 6 GHz capability will see speeds never before achieved. As the bandwidth of 6E is four times wider than the old 2.4 and 5 GHz, even in the future this will remain faster. Don't lose sight of the fact that you will see a difference as long as you use 6 GHz compatible equipment... But the future remains bright!

Wi-Fi connections to smartphones [the first to use the technology] could reach 1 to 2 Gbps on these new networks. Premium connected product for beauty and high fidelity The Mu-so by Naim 

The last word

It may not be the most fashionable device, we don't talk about routers in our everyday conversations and yet it is the cornerstone of all the technology available to us today. We may have the most connected home ever, but without this version update, we're heading for the wall of frustration with tons of bugs and widespread malfunctions.

All 6E Wi-Fi devices should be compatible with each other and backwards compatible with any router you already have at home. The important thing to know, however, is that you won't see the benefits of 6GHz until you buy a 6E Wi-Fi router. Chances are, these will be the first products to hit the market. The good news is that it's coming and hopefully that will be the end of our "Karma" with our Techs! One word to remember WI-FI 6 E.

Stay tuned!

- Christian.