In early October, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced a new version of the Wi-Fi standard - Wi-Fi 6. Its release is scheduled for the end of 2019. The developers have changed the approach to naming - they have replaced the usual constructions like 802.11ax with single digits. Let's see what else is new.
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Why did they change the name
On developers of the standard, a new approach to naming will make the names of Wi-Fi standards understandable to a wide audience.
The Wi-Fi Alliance notes that it is now quite common for users to buy laptops that support a standard that their home router cannot work with. As a result, a newer device resorts to backward compatibility mechanisms - data exchange is carried out using the old standard. In some cases, this can reduce the data transfer rate by 50-80%.
To clearly show which standard a particular gadget supports, the Alliance has developed a new marking - the Wi-Fi icon, on top of which the corresponding number is indicated.
What features are provided with Wi-Fi 6
A detailed description of all the features and characteristics of Wi-Fi 6 can be found in (to receive it, you need to fill out a form) or . Next, we will talk about the main innovations.
Support for 2,4 and 5 GHz bands. Ideally, simultaneous support for 2,4 and 5 GHz will help increase the number of multi-device scenarios. However, in practice, this advantage may not be of any use. There are too many legacy devices on the market (that support 2,4 GHz), so new devices will regularly run in compatibility mode.
OFDMA support. This is Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA). In fact, this technology is a "multi-user" version . It allows you to divide the signal into subcarriers and select their groups for processing individual data streams.
This will allow you to synchronously broadcast data to several Wi-Fi 6 clients at once at an average speed. But there is one caveat: all these clients must support Wi-Fi 6. Therefore, the “old” gadgets, again, are “overboard”.
Collaboration work and OFDM. In Wi-Fi 5 (this in the old designations, which was approved in 2014) technology (Multiple Input Multiple Output) allowed broadcasting data to four clients using different subcarriers. Wi-Fi 6 doubled the number of possible device connections to eight.
The Wi-Fi Alliance says that MU-MIMO systems, together with OFDMA, will help organize multi-user data transmission at speeds up to 11 Gb / s over . Such a result test devices at CES 2018. However, residents of Hacker News that ordinary gadgets (laptops, smartphones) will not see such a speed.
During the tests at CES D-Link DIR-X9000 tri-band router, and 11 Gb / s is the sum of the maximum data transfer rates in three channels. Residents of Hacker News note that most often devices use only one channel, because the data will be broadcast at speeds up to 4804 Mbps.
Target Wake Time function. It will allow devices to go to sleep and “wake up” on schedule. Target Wake Time determines the time when the device is idle and when it is working. If the gadget does not transmit data for a specific period of time (for example, at night), its Wi-Fi connection “falls asleep”, which saves battery power and reduces network congestion.
For each device, a "target wake-up time" is set - the moment when a conditional laptop always transmits data (for example, during business hours on corporate networks). During such periods, sleep mode will not be activated.
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Where Wi-Fi 6 will be used
According to the developers, the technology will be useful when deploying high-density Wi-Fi networks. Selected solutions such as MU-MIMO and OFDMA will improve communication quality in public transport, corporate environments, shopping malls, hotels or stadiums.
However, members of the IT community Wi-Fi 6 has a big minus in the context of technology implementation. The tangible result of the transition to Wi-Fi 6 will be noticeable only if all devices on the network support the new standard. And there will definitely be problems with that.
Recall that the release of Wi-Fi 6 will take place at the end of 2019.
PS A few materials on the topic from the VAS Experts blog:
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Source: habr.com