So You Want to Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6?

6 de janeiro de 2025 / General, Upgrading and troubleshooting, Best Practices

In September 2019, the Wi-Fi Alliance launched its Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 certification program for Wi-Fi devices ahead of the IEEE 802.11ax High Efficiency Wireless (HEW) LAN standard that was ratified later that year. And as with past generations of Wi-Fi, devices appeared in the marketplace well ahead of the standard, from Wi-Fi 6 access points and home gateways to smartphones and laptops with Wi-Fi 6 on board.

Now that Wi-Fi 6 is well established, many enterprise businesses are looking to upgrade — so let’s take a closer look at what you get with Wi-Fi 6. In this first of two parts, we briefly review Wi-Fi 6 standards and performance benefits. In the second part, we cover how to make sure that your cabling plant is ready for Wi-Fi 6.

The Advantages of Wi-Fi 6: Two Frequencies, More Data

Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) gave us wireless speeds beyond 1 Gb/s, which was the main driver for IEEE to introduce 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T that allows the installed base of Category 5e and Category 6 to potentially provide support. But with nearly everyone using wireless networks, apparently those speeds weren’t fast enough.

Enter Wi-Fi 6, with the ability to deliver 10 Gig transmission through the use of eight spatial streams that each transmit at 1,2 Gb/s, compared to Wi-Fi 5 at just 866 Mb/s per stream.

Wi-Fi 6 operates on both the 2,4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, compared to Wi-Fi 5 on the 5 GHz band. While the 5 GHz band continues to be used primarily for less interference and faster rates (offering 500 MHz of bandwidth versus 80 MHz for the 2,4 GHz band), 2,4 GHz is still better at penetrating solid objects and covering longer distances (about three times farther than 5 GHz). There’s also somewhat less interference in the 2,4 GHz band than there used to be, since many devices such as cordless telephones that used this band are falling by the wayside.

Wi-Fi 6 can use both frequencies simultaneously to increase the amount of data that can be transmitted.

The Next Step: Reduce Congestion on Wi-Fi 6 with Wi-Fi 6E

As more and more devices take advantage of Wi-Fi, however, even Wi-Fi 6 is being impacted by congestion. That’s where Wi-Fi 6E comes in.

Wi-Fi 6E extends the capacity of Wi-Fi 6 by using up to 14 additional 80 MHz and 7 additional 160 MHz non-overlapping channels in the 6 GHz band. Primarily intended for applications like high-definition video streaming and virtual reality, Wi-Fi 6E supports even more users to reduce congestion — and it isn’t affected by older Wi-Fi 5 devices using the 5 GHz band. Only those devices with Wi-Fi 6E support can use the 6 GHz spectrum.

Next, let’s talk about what you need to make sure your cabling plant is ready for Wi-Fi 6.