The issuance of certificates began on September 16 last year. Since then, many articles and notes about the new wireless standard have been published, including on Habré. Most of these articles are technical specifications of the technology with a description of the advantages and disadvantages.
With this, everything is fine, as it should be, especially on technical resources. We decided to try to figure out why WiFi 6 is needed for an ordinary user. Business, industry, etc. - here you can’t do without new communication protocols. But will WiFi 6 change the life of the average person who is not going to download terabytes of movies? Let's try to figure it out.
Previous generation WiFi issue
The main problem is that if many devices are connected to the wireless access point, then the speed drops. This is familiar to anyone who has tried to connect to a shared hotspot in a coffee shop, mall, or airport. The more devices connected to the access point, the slower the Internet. All these devices "compete" for the channel. And the router tries to choose which device to give access to. Sometimes it turns out that the smart bulb gets access, and not the phone running the all-important video conference.
And this is a very important drawback, which is sensitive to the average user. Companies that care about reliable communication somehow get out of the situation by installing additional access points, reserving communication channels, etc.
What about WiFi 6?
Improved channel performance and stability
The new standard cannot be called a panacea, it is not a qualitatively new technology, but an improvement on an existing one. However, one of the new products is very important, it is the OFDMA technology. It significantly increases the speed and stability of the channel, allowing you to divide it into several (and, if necessary, a large number of sub-channels. “All sisters - by earrings,” as the saying goes. Well, in the case of WiFi 6, each gadget has its own communication channel. This is called multiple access with orthogonal frequency division.
The old standard, if we take the logistics company as an analogy, sends cargo in turn, with each client sent a separate car with its own cargo. These cars do not leave at the same time, but according to the schedule, strictly after each other. In the case of WiFi 6, one car carries all the parcels at the same time, and upon arrival, each recipient chooses his own parcel.
Plus, advanced MU-MIMO technology makes it possible to simultaneously transmit a signal that devices that support the previous wireless standard were able to, as well as receive it. The result is no signal interference, if you take two access points with WiFi 6 support and put them side by side, they will each work on their own communication channel, without any problems. And each will receive a signal that is sent by "its" device. Well, the number of simultaneous connections has been increased to 8.
The previous communication standard did not give the access point the ability to distinguish “own” traffic from “foreign”. As a result, in apartment buildings, the data transfer rate is relatively low, since routers, catching other people's signals, “think” that the communication channel is loaded. WiFi 6 does not have this problem thanks to the BSS Coloring function, which allows you to recognize "us" and "them". Data packets are digitally signed, so there is no confusion.
Increased speed
She is growing. The maximum throughput of the communication channel reaches 11 Gbps. This is possible not only due to everything that is described above, but also due to the effective compression of information. The new wireless chips are more powerful, so encoding and decoding is faster than before.
The increase in speed is significant. For example, even at the start of this technology, the PCMag editors in their building with a huge number of different smart devices, smartphones, access points were able to achieve an increase in speed of up to 50% using different routers.
CNET was able to achieve an increase from 938 Mbps to 1523!
Increase the battery life of devices
We are talking about laptops, tablets and smartphones. WiFi 6 has a wake-on-demand feature, Target Wake Time (TWT). Devices that support this feature can last significantly longer than those that are not compatible with the new standard.
The fact is that with each access to the device, a time period is set after which the gadget's WiFi module is activated, or, conversely, put it into sleep mode.
And when can you take advantage of WiFi 6?
In general, already now, but there are a number of limitations. Firstly, not many routers support this standard, although their number is increasing. Secondly, the router is not enough, the sixth generation wireless connection must also be supported by the device connecting to the access point. And besides, the provider-router communication channel must also be relatively fast, otherwise nothing good will come of it either.
Well, answering the question posed in the title, we will answer that yes, WiFi 6 is needed by an ordinary user, the new standard will make life easier for all of us, both at work and at home. Stable and fast connection that saves battery power of a laptop or smartphone - what else do you need to be happy?
What does Zyxel have?
Zyxel, keeping up with the times, introduced three new business-class 802.11ax access points. They will work great both in apartments and in offices. The new devices increase wireless bandwidth up to six times even in high client density environments. The connection is stable, and data transfer delays and packet loss are reduced to a minimum.
As for the devices themselves, these are:
- Access point . It provides a data transfer rate of 3550 Mbps (2400 Mbps in the 5 GHz frequency band and 1150 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz frequency band).
- Access point . Provides a maximum data transfer rate of 1775 Mbps (1200 Mbps in the 5 GHz frequency band and 575 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz frequency band).
- Access point . Provides a maximum data transfer rate of 1775 Mbps (1200 Mbps in the 5 GHz frequency band and 575 Mbps in the 2.4 GHz frequency band).
Source: habr.com