The next generation of connectivity is proving to be zeroed about the Internet of Things and ‘Smartness’, and the wireless standards on which it should run ought to be at par. The latest Wi-Fi generation, Wi-Fi 6, is coming next year with a lot of such capabilities and benefits.
You might already be wondering about the numbering, but you got it right – its Wi-Fi 6!
The previous Wi-Fi versions were identified by a letter or a pair of letters that referred to a wireless standard. The new naming system was introduced by Wi-Fi Alliance to help users identify devices that provide the latest Wi-Fi experience.
Wi-Fi devices supporting the latest generation of connectivity are based on the 802.11ax standard and are known as Wi-Fi 6 devices.
Wi-Fi 5 identifies devices that support 802.11ac technology while Wi-Fi 4 supports those that support 802.11n technology. Wi-Fi 1, Wi-Fi 2, and Wi-Fi 3 aren’t being branded because they aren’t widely in use.
Wi-Fi 6 new capabilities and benefits
What are some of the capabilities introduced?
- The latest generation has uplink and downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) which increases connectivity efficiency and lowers latency especially for high demand environments.
- It has an improved medium access control (MAC) control signaling which increases throughput and capacity while also reducing latency.
- It comes with a 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation mode (1024-QAM) that enables peak gigabit speeds for emerging, bandwidth-intensive use cases
- It also has increased symbol durations to make outdoor network operations more robust.
The benefits to look out for in Wi-Fi 6 are higher data rates, increased capacity, good performance in dense environments, and improved power efficiency.
Backward compatibility
Wi-Fi 6 is backward compatible with all the already available Wi-Fi gadgets you may have. You won’t have to worry about using your back dated router on a Wi-Fi 6 phone.
You only just won’t be able to get the fastest speeds until all your devices are Wi-Fi 6 enabled.
