Much has been made of the massive performance improvements the new wireless standard would bring. Today we look at what improvements have been made over previous generations and what practical influence it may have on our use of the technology.
Wifi6 or IEEE 802.11ax-2021 or 802.11ax is an IEEE standard for wireless local-area networks (WLANs) and the successor of 802.11ac. It uses the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrum bands and Wi-Fi 6E (6 GHz) by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Its design specifically needed to address issues around throughput, latency, power consumption and higher client densities. This practically addresses issues in high uses cases such as corporate offices, shopping malls, stadiums and high-rise residential spaces.
MU-MIMO
What is MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple Input, Multiple Output) you ask. Essentially the technology allows the router to communicate directly and simultaneously with devices connected to it. Previously conversation were one to one with the router having to ‘hop’ between devices.
TWT
TWT or Target Wake Time massively improves energy saving for IoT devices. This is an important requirement as the biggest growth area for wireless will be from the IoT space.
1024-QAM
1024-QAM improves spectrum utilization and avoids interference with neighbouring networks.
What are the Number?
Through application of these technologies nominal data rates are improved against the older 802.11ac by 37%, Latency is lowered by 75% this translates into an overall throughput improvement (over an entire network) of 400%!
