Wi-Fi 6 – simple and better

11.12.2018 1,947 11

Martin Pramatarov

There is a new Wi-Fi standard coming in 2019, and this time it has a better and simpler name. Forget about the 802.11 and the random letter. Now everything is clear and straightforward – Wi-Fi 6 is here. But the innovation is not just in the name. Keep reading if you want to find out even more exciting details!

What’s new with Wi-Fi 6?

Improved performance in a dense environment. With IoT getting more popular, there are many more connected devices. This is why the Wi-Fi routers need to improve. With Wi-Fi 6 they can offer up to 4 times better performance per connected device.

The new Wi-Fi can support up to 8 (4 more than Wi-Fi 5) streams simultaneously. The streams can be both upload or download. This can be really useful for offices where many devices use the same router.

As you can expect, the new Wi-Fi is faster. It could be as much as 4 times faster in comparison with Wi-Fi 5, when a single gadget is connected to the router. It uses the same frequencies – 2.4GHz and 5GHz and achieves the speed by having more bandwidth.

It has improved battery life for client devices. It has a new efficiency- boosting feature – target wake time (TWT) that sets specific times for the client device to wake up and go to sleep.

How was it before?

All of the names of the Wi-Fi standards are creations of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). As you can see, the version we are talking about is 6, so there must be preceded by 5 more. Let’s see how the Wi-Fi’s speed has improved over the years.

So, the future is simple. Everybody can understand it and make purchase decisions. Wi-Fi 6 is the next standard, but it will pave the way for Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 8 and so on.

It will take some time, probably at least until the middle of 2019, when we will see the first Wi-Fi 6 client devices. These gadgets will be able to connect to Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 4 routers. So don’t throw the older routers away!