WiFi 6
Wi-Fi 6 is the next generation of Wi-Fi. It still works the same allowing you to connect to the internet, but with just a bunch of additional technologies to make that happen more efficiently and speeding up connections in the process.
Wi-Fi 6 Technology is a substantial upgrade over previous generations and provides faster connection speeds, and Instead of just boosting the speed for individual devices, Wi-Fi 6 is all about improving the network when a bunch of devices is connected.
Two key technologies are speeding up Wi-Fi 6 connections:
- MU-MIMO: The technology allows a router to communicate with multiple devices at the same time, rather than broadcasting to one device, and then the next, and the next.
- OFDMA: It is a multi-user version of the OFDM digital-modulation technology. In Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), OFDMA is one of the critical features to improve network performance.
Wi-Fi 6 Technology also,
- Supports target wake time (TWT). That allows an AP to manage activity in the Wi-Fi network. So with this feature, when the AP is not sending or receiving data they go into sleep mode.
- It also Overlapping Basic Service Sets (OBSS) is another Wi-Fi 6 feature that can help to improve network congestion.
- Focused Beams: Wi-Fi 6 can even focus its signal towards the location of a wireless device to improve speed and reliability.
- Bandwidth on 2.4GHz is 574 Mbps and Bandwidth on 5GHz is 2.4 Gbps
- IEEE 802.11ax standard
HOW FAST IS IT?
The short but incomplete answer: 9.6 Gbps. That’s up from 3.5 Gbps on Wi-Fi 5.
The real answer: both of those speeds are theoretical maximums that you’re unlikely to ever reach in real-world Wi-Fi use. And even if you could reach those speeds, it’s not clear that you’d need them.
That 9.6 Gbps doesn’t have to go to a single computer. It can be split up across a whole network of devices. That means more potential speed for each device.