The Alliance states that Wi-Fi 6’s key benefits include higher data rates, increased network capacity, improved performance in congested environments, and improved power efficiency. These capabilities include:
- Uplink and downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA): increases network efficiency and lowers latency for high demand environments
- Multi-user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO): allows more data to be transferred at once and enables an access point to transmit to a larger number of concurrent clients at once
- Transmit beamforming: enables higher data rates at a given range resulting in greater network capacity
- 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation mode (1024-QAM): increases throughput in Wi-Fi devices by encoding more data in the same amount of spectrum
- Target wake time (TWT): significantly improves battery life in Wi-Fi devices, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices
“Wi-Fi 6 delivers features to satisfy users’ evolving connectivity needs and to enable more efficiency in the expanding places where users rely on Wi-Fi,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance. “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 continues a nearly 20-year history of providing standards-based, interoperability testing to ensure Wi-Fi devices meet expectations for quality and interoperability.”
Further reading:
Eyes on the prize – our Big Interview with Edgar Figueroa
US: FCC proposes making 1.2 GHz in the 6 GHz band available for unlicenced use
Breaking through barriers – our look at what Wi-Fi 6 has to offer
In the market for… Wi-Fi – a guide to procuring Wi-Fi networks
Exhibition Wi-Fi: Best in show – Exhibition venues can suffer from poor Wi-Fi performance, due to the presence of many ad hoc networks and other issues. This article discusses this problem and how it can be solved
