10 ms·

Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

234 points by okket 8y ago

johnzim 8y ago
Good decision on their part. As laughable as some technical branding sometimes seems, it usually serves a decent purpose in helping people upgrade infrastructure.
kevin_b_er 8y ago
Wi-Fi Alliance is naming the not-yet-complete IEEE 802.11ax standard as Wi-Fi 6, with ac being 5, and n being 4. One can guess then a is supposed to 1, b as 2, and g as 3, but this isn't mentioned anywhere I can see. As far as I can tell, all of these numbers are new. At least this naming is a good deal clearer than HDMI's confusing version and feature mix or USB's Speed names. What isn't clear is how much control the Wi-Fi Alliance has over the tech industry and how their branding is used, but it looks like they might be able to compel a lot of companies to adopt this new naming. They've got standards for logos on things like your computer or phone, so we'll see if these start getting adopted by major manufacturers.
- Nullabillity 8y ago
  When was the last time you saw a WiFi logo? The only time I can remember was as one of those stickers on a HP laptop in 2005.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Not a logo, but lots of cell phone manufacturers like to list which Wi-Fi standard they support because they can then advertise “gigabit” downloads and the like.
- kbenson 8y ago
  > Wi-Fi Alliance is naming the not-yet-complete IEEE 802.11ax standard as Wi-Fi 6, with ac being 5, and n being 4. One can guess then a is supposed to 1, b as 2, and g as 3, but this isn't mentioned anywhere I can see. Oh, I'm so happy it's a number that seems to correspond to something (as long as the next one is 7 or 8 or some integer slightly larger than 6). I look at wifi tech so rarely that I've mostly skipped a standard once or twice, but that just means I'm confused when I look at what's being offered. 802.11n? 802.11ac? What's better? If it's not as clear cut, which one came out later and is likely to be backwards compatible with the prior one? If it was single letter increasing without large gaps, that might have been easier, but from what I remember, b wasn't strictly better than a when they were both first out (from looking at the info now, a has a higher rate, but suffers from obstructions and other interference more). > At least this naming is a good deal clearer than HDMI's confusing version and feature mix or USB's Speed names. Yes. As I understand it, USB is particularly bad where there's often confusion over the connectors, cable, and protocol, especially at the USB-c level.
  - Gaelan 8y ago
    ac is later and presumably better. No idea if there are any trade offs
    - chipperyman573 8y ago
      AC only supports 5gz, which has significantly worse range and is impacted much more by walls or other solid objects. But if there aren't a problem it's generally better
      - mrb 8y ago
        "AC only supports 5gz." That's not an accurate statement. "802.11ac" denotes a set of features, and many of them apply to and benefit the 2.4 GHz band. For example 256QAM encoding boosts the max data rate by 20 or 33% on this band for, respectively, 20 and 40 MHz channels.
        chipperyman573 8y ago
        Interesting. How come all the consumer routers I've used have always required 5ghz to use AC capabilities? Are the rest of the ac features enterprisey? Or have I just not interacted with enough routers to see these?
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        oasisbob 8y ago
        Isn't 256QAM on 2.4GHz a proprietary feature? https://www.cwnp.com/forums/posts?postNum=307358 https://www.cwnp.com/forums/posts?postNum=307358 I always heard that 802.11ac was 5GHz only, and that on dual-band, stations would stick with 802.11n for 2.4GHz
        DesertBattery 8y ago
        > 802.11ac is a 5-GHz-only technology https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/aironet-3600-series/white-paper-c11-713103.pdf https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wirele...
- colanderman 8y ago
  Hm, I would expect 802.11-1997 to be 1. Is that 0? Or does it share a number with b, because they're the same technology? Or is it 1, and a and g share a number because they're the same technology? Or do a and b share a number because they were released simultaneously? (This is, of course, a Very Important Question.)
  - gonzo 8y ago
    > Or does it share a number with b, because they're the same technology? 802.11b is part of 802.11-1999. 802.11-1997 describes the older Direct Spread (DS) and Frequency-Hopping (FS) standards in 2.4GHz. 802.11a and 802.11b were both ratified on 16 September 1999. 802.11g wasn't ratified until 12 June 2003. http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/802.11_Timelines.htm http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/802.11_Timelin...
    - colanderman 8y ago
      Right, 802.11b extended DSSS used by 802.11-1997 for 1 and 2 Mbps through 5.5 and 11 Mbps rates. No other Wi-Fi standards used DSSS.
  - kingbirdy 8y ago
    I think this is why they didn't give the numbers for the early versions
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    I think 802.11-1997 works as 0 in this case. The implication from the Wi-Fi Alliance seems to be they are counting consumer hardware generations, and there doesn't seem to have been much consumer hardware that was directly 802.11-1997 (it took b to get consumer adoption). Which is why the order I've heard that makes the most sense is 1 (b), 2 (a), 3 (g), because that was roughly the consumer hardwave waves, with the brief (a) hardware wave the fun out-of-order one.
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      a and b were specced at the same time though, so it's really weird to look at a+b+g as anything other than two generations.
- rythie 8y ago
  > Wi-Fi Alliance is naming the not-yet-complete IEEE 802.11ax standard as Wi-Fi 6, with ac being 5, and n being 4. One can guess then a is supposed to 1, b as 2, and g as 3, but this isn't mentioned anywhere I can see. Most 802.11b and 802.11g devices didn't support 802.11a (due to it requiring 5Ghz), so I'm guessing version 1 is 802.11 and 802.11a isn't part of the version numbers.
  - cesarb 8y ago
    I would put 802.11a as 3 together with 802.11g, since they have the same rates (and are basically the same tech in a different band, 802.11g feels like 802.11a ported to 2.4GHz plus some extra compatibility stuff).
    - WorldMaker 8y ago
      It sounds like the Wi-Fi Alliance doesn't particularly care which one is 1, 2, and 3. They've only strongly defined 4 (n), 5 (ac), and 6 (ax). [1] It also sounds like they don't think enough devices are left in the wild of a, b, g, to worry about branding them. The best description I've heard for 1-3 was to use roughly the consumer hardware adoption curve which was 1 (b), [briefly] 2 (a), 3 (g). [1] https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- all_blue_chucks 8y ago
  Does that make the original 802.11 "Wi-Fi 0"?
mtgx 8y ago
802.11ax is 802.11n's true successor and I hope it will be adopted quickly by everyone. 802.11ac for the 5GHz band was a faux successor, in my opinion, as you couldn't use it in the same scenarios. It came with some higher performance, but with major compromises in reach for a typical home. Wi-Fi 6/802.11ax should last for a while, so I hope the Wi-Fi Alliance starts focusing on an actual long-range standard that's more of a competitor to LTE but that works in the unlicensed spectrum and for distances of 1km or longer. Then it needs to incentivize smartphone makers or smartphone modem makers to adopt it so that everyone will have it. This would remove the biggest obstacle towards having a real meshnet.
- garmaine 8y ago
  WiMax?
  - DiabloD3 8y ago
    WiMax is an LTE alternative designed by an IEEE 802 committee. It is designed for last mile delivery and also meets the requirements to be considered a 4G and 5G protocol. Although technically superior to LTE, phone companies (outside of Sprint, in the US at least) chose not to deploy it as it was not based on existing protocols (GSM and CDMA), even though that isn't an actual legitimate reason, as "true" LTE requires VoLTE deployment, which phone companies refused to do until forced to; VoLTE-enabled handsets perform a lot better than their pre-VoLTE or VoLTE-disabled siblings purely because of not needing to waste valuable spectrum on 3G connections, allowing that band to be reassigned to a 4G radio on the tower. On top of the VoLTE debacle, companies invested in the GSM and CDMA monopoly tried to claim WiMax did not perform well at long distances, the same distances that LTE does not work well with today (found frequently in rural areas in the US, or similarly in areas heavily shadowed by hills or tall buildings); however the adoption of 600/700mhz to fill in those gaps (plus the forced adoption of VoLTE to improve spectrum usage) has proven that to be false. LTE in areas that are partly covered by existing bands, with the gaps filled in by 600/700mhz, have finally caught up to WiMax in real world testing. Interestingly, Asia has adopted WiMax heavily but may be switching to LTE in the future for 5G deployment, even though WiMax beat LTE-A to the commercial gigabit deployment milestone, due to these continued misconceptions. Africa's few networks that were WiMAX are (or have already) switched to LTE (driving up the cost, and lowering the reliability of their networks). The one place WiMax survived in the US was fixed broadband links (as this is what WiMax was originally designed for, until it merged with Korea's WiBro spec more than a decade ago), but that seems to be finally being replaced in favor with LTE-A's fixed profiles. WiMax will probably beat LTE to working gigabit deployments, although you'll need to live in Asia for this to be relevant to you. WiMax is not related to WiFi; although the actual underlying technology of all standards are rapidly converging, they are designed for different purposes.
ocdtrekkie 8y ago
This is just such a sensible change, it's amazing it took everyone this long to come up with it. Figuring out whether something is b, g, n, ac, etc. and then trying to remember which one comes next (ax) is just not going to filter down to the regular consumer like... ever. I can definitely see perks both in "hey, that's the newer network, it's got a higher version number", and "oh, I guess I do need to buy a new Wi-Fi device, it only supports version 4", etc.
- chrisfinazzo 8y ago
  At the same time, some version numbers are meaningless (because Chrome), so I'm ambivalent about the change. Still, this should make it easier for mere mortals to understand.
  - sp332 8y ago
    True, but Chrome also de-emphasized the version number. I don't usually remember what version I'm on, and the only place most people might see it is when they manually check for a new version. Wi-Fi 6 is going to be used a lot in branding.
  - theandrewbailey 8y ago
    At least there's not a new version of WiFi every 6-8 weeks.
  - wlesieutre 8y ago
    I don't know about "meaningless" as much as "not something normal people need to care about."
shmerl 8y ago
Looks like penetration and range decrease with each new WiFi generation.
- astrodust 8y ago
  It's not a bad thing. Base stations are cheap and it's better than having everyone's network clog everyone else's. As someone who lives within reach of 30+ networks, this is a step up.
- kalleboo 8y ago
  Not really. There's only the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz split. And the problem with "long range" is that everyone who doesn't live in a detached suburban house now has massive noise on the 2.4 GHz band from their 20 neighbors so that everyone gets terrible speeds. The weaker penetration/range of 5 GHz solves that by right-sizing everyone's network. edit: researching the updates in 802.11ax, it looks like Wi-Fi 6 will bring the improvements from 802.11ac to 2.4 GHz as well, so it will actually improve performance for people who need range as well. It also has guard interval improvements for outdoor environments.
  - kbirkeland 8y ago
    The larger problem with the 2.4 GHz ISM band is the lack of non-overlapping channels along with only one station being able to transmit at a time per channel (in pre 802.11ax). There are only three non-overlapping 20 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed spectrum, where 5 GHz spectrum has about 21 (although some require active radar avoidance).
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > The larger problem with the 2.4 GHz ISM band is ... only one station being able to transmit at a time per channel Is there any Wifi tech for which that isn't true, sans beam-shaping and other tech that effectively puts stations on different physical networks? How do 5 GHz technologies handle multiple simultaneous broadcasts on the same channel? How will 802.11ax do it? Signal processing? My impression, based on only a little research, is that it's impossible with any tech. Even cell providers need CDMA, TDMA, etc. Maybe that understanding is out of date?
joemi 8y ago
FINALLY. Confusing version numbering always annoys me, and wifi's "n", "ac", "g", etc version names (combined with the easy to get wrong "802.11") have been one of the biggest offenders for a while. When a version number is a marketable metric, it should not be confusing. Others notable offenders that jump to mind: the Xbox range (Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One X), iPhone SE and XR (since they break the pattern all the rest fit in).
- danggg 8y ago
  It’s only you though... I find them very easy to follow.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  Maybe there's someone with a sense of humor there and Wifi 9 will be skipped as a dig at both Microsoft and Apple. Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone X Wifi 6, Wifi 7, Wifi 8, Wifi Ten
  - piotrkubisa 8y ago
    Well, I think they have already skipped 802.11ad which initially looked like a next version. Personally, I know only one router available to casual consumer made by Netgear [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Standards_and_amendments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Standards_and_amen... [1]: http://www.za.netgear.com/landings/ad7200/default.aspx http://www.za.netgear.com/landings/ad7200/default.aspx
  - HankB99 8y ago
    I was looking for an opportunity to say something similar. I didn't realize there was that much prior art!
- tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
  Add the "Pixel" range to confusing version numbering: "Chromebook Pixel" (a Chromebook released in 2013, commonly called just "Pixel") "Chromebook Pixel" (a Chromebook released in 2015, commonly called "Pixel 2") "Pixel" (a phone released in 2016) "Pixel 2" (a phone released in 2017) "Pixelbook" (a Chromebook released in 2017) Or even worse, the Moto ranges: "Moto G" (a phone released in 2013) "Moto G" (a phone released in 2014) "Moto G" (a phone released in 2015) Luckily, they have learned from their horribleness and now officially include the generation in the name, making their new naming scheme one of the best: Moto G5 (5th generation of their mid-range phone) Compare with Nokia: Nokia 1 Nokia 2 Nokia 2.1 Nokia 3 Nokia 3.1 Nokia 5 Nokia 5.1 Nokia 5.1 Plus / Nokia X5 Nokia 6 Nokia 6.1 Nokia 6.1 Plus / Nokia X6 Nokia 7 Nokia 7 Plus Nokia 8 Nokia 8 Sirocco I have no clue what is what and it's confusing enough that I don't want to buy their phones even though one of them is most likely exactly what I want (high-range but not top-range phone that has stock or near-stock Android and receives updates quickly).
dev_dull 8y ago
From Wikipedi: >Though the nominal data rate is just 37% higher than IEEE 802.11ac, the new amendment is expected to achieve a 4× increase to user throughput due to more efficient spectrum utilization. >IEEE 802.11ax is due to be publicly released sometime in 2019.[2] Devices were presented at CES 2018 that showed a top speed of 11 Gbit/s.[3] Sounds good but with limited practical value while broadband speeds stay so limited in home. For businesses this would make a big difference (for example editing HD video over WiFi).
- jessriedel 8y ago
  I suspect for most WiFi users, the overwhelming need is more reliable and fast establishment of connection. I waste vastly more time trying to deal with flaky connections, reconnection after wake from sleep, and network priority issues than I do waiting in the rare cases the WiFi is limiting thd data transfer rate (rather than the wired connection). The timescales involved in making Wifi connections should be ms or less, not human-noticeable (order 10 sec).
  - ericd 8y ago
    I've found Macs to be vastly better at this than my Linux/windows laptops, for some reason, to the point where I almost never wait for them to connect. Might just be some aggressive workarounds they've implemented, though.
    - ahartmetz 8y ago
      I've seen Connman connect in under a second IIRC, on am embedded system. Proper PCs usually use wpa_supplicant, NetworkManager and some DHCP client, none of which are very fast. Connman doesn't seem to handle all possible situations like NetworkManager, though, and its developers only seem to do (or approve patches for) whatever Intel management tells them to do.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      IME, Macs connect faster when the signal is strong. But on a weaker link, it takes just as long as my Windows and Linux machines.
riffic 8y ago
This is so dumb, no one's even using Wi-Fi 1 through 5 yet.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  > no one's even using Wi-Fi 1 through 5 yet. Yea they are.
schen57 8y ago
Can someone explain what this means for consumers? Who benefits the most from this new release?
- azinman2 8y ago
  Ordinary people who go to buy a device can know what “version” a router or laptop/phone supports. It makes it much clearer when comparing two routers which supports newer technology rather than knowing the diff between .ac or .n
Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
I have a quite long apartment with reception problems in some rooms, and was planning to buy a mesh system (like the TP-Link Deco M9 Plus or similar) to replace my aging range extender (which is stuck on 802.11n now that I have a 802.11ac router). I'm more of a software guy, don't know that much about hardware and networking, so can any expert on these things give an opinion as to whether this is a bad moment to buy it? Would it be better to wait for 802.11ax/6 to arrive? When can we expect to find hardware (such as mesh kits) reliably supporting the new standard?
- rayiner 8y ago
  802.11ax (or WiFi 6) is going to primarily benefit you at 5 GHz, which is best where you have line-of-sight between the device and the AP. If you're looking into range extenders, you probably don't have line of sight and it's not worth it. Mesh Wifi sucks.[1] It takes Wifi unreliability and latency and compounds it by adding hopes. Just bite the bullet and put in multiple APs, all connected to a router via Ethernet. [1] Mesh [any sort of wireless] sucks.
  - fyfy18 8y ago
    > Mesh Wifi sucks. As an alternative for what doesn’t suck, you want multiple hardwired access points. Obviously if you are renting that is tricky though. Ubiquti UAP-PROs are pretty good for home use, and a couple at each end of your apartment would be faster (and probably cheaper) than a prosumer mesh setup.
- Brushfire 8y ago
  I have 4 eeros in my house and they are amazing and we never have any issues. I'm so glad I ditched all the netgear/d-link/tp-link/whatever garbage. The hardware is fine but the firmware is always shit. Get a set of euros and stop worrying about wifi ever again.
mrb 8y ago
Really good whitepaper on WiFi 6 (802.11ax): https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/white-paper-c11-740788.pdf https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wirele... Also: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/53150/en/ http://www.ni.com/white-paper/53150/en/ Main differences with 802.11ac: - denser subcarriers (or "tones") spacing; they are spaced by 78.125 kHz instead of 312.5 kHz, for example a 80 MHz channel now allows 980 data subcarriers, up from 234. That's a 4.19× improvement (4× higher density doesn't translate in exactly a 4× improvement because 11ac had a bit more "pilot" or "null" subcarriers not used for data.) - new 1024QAM mode (encodes 10 bits per symbol, up from 8 bits with 256QAM). That's a 1.25× improvement. - downside is that the symbol length had to be increased from 3.2 µs to 12.8 µs, and the symbol interval too from 0.4 µs to 0.8 µs. That's a 3.78× reduction in efficiency. So the maximum data rate for a single stream on a 80 MHz channel increased by 4.19×1.25/3.78 = 1.39× between WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 (you can confirm it with published max data rate: 802.11ac = 433 Mbit/s, 802.11ax = 600 Mbit/s; and 600/433 = 1.39). But the best feature of WiFi 6 is that different subcarriers can be concurrently used by different users, what they dubbed OFDMA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiple_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_...). This means that during the same 12.8 µs timeslot, even on a small channel like 20 MHz, you can have 9 concurrent users each assigned 26 subcarriers and each transmitting 26 different symbols (total of 234 symbols transmitted concurrently.) Whereas with WiFi 5, all subcarriers of the 20 MHz channel have to be used by the same user.
- zaroth 8y ago
  Great information! I wonder how the subcarrier allotments are orchestrated, particularly under hidden neighbor conditions. Presumably the AP has to orchestrate it based on QoS settings, but the client-OS will need upgrades throughout the stack to signal how much bandwidth should be allotted/reserved at different times. Sounds complicated and tricky, and not likely to work very well for devices where bandwidth requirements are extremely bursty and unpredictable.
- ricardobeat 8y ago
  Due to the increased efficiency, the speed increase is supposed to be much higher. At CES they showed up to 11Gbits: https://www.zdnet.com/article/d-link-asus-tout-802-11ax-wi-fi-routers-but-youll-have-to-wait-until-later-in-2018/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/d-link-asus-tout-802-11ax-wi-f...
yholio 8y ago
This time, maybe they hire some cryptographers too instead of letting the network engineers design the security features. For crying out loud, they took their sweet 20 years to actually create a protocol with forward secrecy and resistant to offline attacks - WPA3.
femto 8y ago
Cunning. Why have 5G, when you can have Wi-Fi 6? I'd posit that this renaming is part of the ongoing competition between Wi-Fi and LTE, and prompted by the advent of 5G?
sargun 8y ago
It’s kinda a bummer to see 802.11ad being ignored. I use 802.11ad for game streaming in my house, and it’s great. It’s also great for the “access point per room” story, if there was a mechanism to have cheaper APs and do hand off.
- bjoli 8y ago
  I suspect the numbering will only be used for more or less backwards compatible standards. I doubt they will break compatibility with N anytime soon.
ezoe 8y ago
I like new numbering system which allows me to quickly deduce the generation of standards. No more a/b/g/n/a-something.
ksec 8y ago
WiFi 6, or 802.11ax, has been in development for sometime and faces lots of difficulties and controversies. First it was discovered all the major companies were working behind close door forming a group called Densi-Fi, trying to super speed the spec, or more like neglecting all the issues around it and push forward the time to market. This has been discover by some other IEEE members, and the problem has since been "resolved". The Density-Fi section in 802.11ax has since be deleted from Wiki, despite many attempts to bring it back. The 802.11ax committees continue to push forward and correct me if I am wrong, are there any other IEEE spec that failed to pass in all of its Draft? Draft 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 for 802.11ax all failed to pass the vote. With Draft 4.0 being pushed and forcibly passed, while all the comments ( ~2300 of it ) being the same and unresolved as Draft 3.0. Much like 802.11ac there will be Wave 1 and Wave 2. Wave 1 does not include Uplink MU-MIMO, 80+80Mhz Channels and some other things I don't remember on top of my head. I am not sure what to make of this. Because it reads to me as a giant pile of mess and I don't want to be the guinea pig for this new spec.

234 points by okket 8y ago

Good decision on their part. As laughable as some technical branding sometimes seems, it usually serves a decent purpose in helping people upgrade infrastructure.

kevin_b_er 8y ago

Wi-Fi Alliance is naming the not-yet-complete IEEE 802.11ax standard as Wi-Fi 6, with ac being 5, and n being 4. One can guess then a is supposed to 1, b as 2, and g as 3, but this isn't mentioned anywhere I can see. As far as I can tell, all of these numbers are new. At least this naming is a good deal clearer than HDMI's confusing version and feature mix or USB's Speed names. What isn't clear is how much control the Wi-Fi Alliance has over the tech industry and how their branding is used, but it looks like they might be able to compel a lot of companies to adopt this new naming. They've got standards for logos on things like your computer or phone, so we'll see if these start getting adopted by major manufacturers.

Nullabillity 8y ago
When was the last time you saw a WiFi logo? The only time I can remember was as one of those stickers on a HP laptop in 2005.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Not a logo, but lots of cell phone manufacturers like to list which Wi-Fi standard they support because they can then advertise “gigabit” downloads and the like.
kbenson 8y ago
> Wi-Fi Alliance is naming the not-yet-complete IEEE 802.11ax standard as Wi-Fi 6, with ac being 5, and n being 4. One can guess then a is supposed to 1, b as 2, and g as 3, but this isn't mentioned anywhere I can see. Oh, I'm so happy it's a number that seems to correspond to something (as long as the next one is 7 or 8 or some integer slightly larger than 6). I look at wifi tech so rarely that I've mostly skipped a standard once or twice, but that just means I'm confused when I look at what's being offered. 802.11n? 802.11ac? What's better? If it's not as clear cut, which one came out later and is likely to be backwards compatible with the prior one? If it was single letter increasing without large gaps, that might have been easier, but from what I remember, b wasn't strictly better than a when they were both first out (from looking at the info now, a has a higher rate, but suffers from obstructions and other interference more). > At least this naming is a good deal clearer than HDMI's confusing version and feature mix or USB's Speed names. Yes. As I understand it, USB is particularly bad where there's often confusion over the connectors, cable, and protocol, especially at the USB-c level.
- Gaelan 8y ago
  ac is later and presumably better. No idea if there are any trade offs
  - chipperyman573 8y ago
    AC only supports 5gz, which has significantly worse range and is impacted much more by walls or other solid objects. But if there aren't a problem it's generally better
    - mrb 8y ago
      "AC only supports 5gz." That's not an accurate statement. "802.11ac" denotes a set of features, and many of them apply to and benefit the 2.4 GHz band. For example 256QAM encoding boosts the max data rate by 20 or 33% on this band for, respectively, 20 and 40 MHz channels.
      - chipperyman573 8y ago
        Interesting. How come all the consumer routers I've used have always required 5ghz to use AC capabilities? Are the rest of the ac features enterprisey? Or have I just not interacted with enough routers to see these?
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - oasisbob 8y ago
        Isn't 256QAM on 2.4GHz a proprietary feature? https://www.cwnp.com/forums/posts?postNum=307358 https://www.cwnp.com/forums/posts?postNum=307358 I always heard that 802.11ac was 5GHz only, and that on dual-band, stations would stick with 802.11n for 2.4GHz
      - DesertBattery 8y ago
        > 802.11ac is a 5-GHz-only technology https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/aironet-3600-series/white-paper-c11-713103.pdf https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wirele...
colanderman 8y ago
Hm, I would expect 802.11-1997 to be 1. Is that 0? Or does it share a number with b, because they're the same technology? Or is it 1, and a and g share a number because they're the same technology? Or do a and b share a number because they were released simultaneously? (This is, of course, a Very Important Question.)
- gonzo 8y ago
  > Or does it share a number with b, because they're the same technology? 802.11b is part of 802.11-1999. 802.11-1997 describes the older Direct Spread (DS) and Frequency-Hopping (FS) standards in 2.4GHz. 802.11a and 802.11b were both ratified on 16 September 1999. 802.11g wasn't ratified until 12 June 2003. http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/802.11_Timelines.htm http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/802.11_Timelin...
  - colanderman 8y ago
    Right, 802.11b extended DSSS used by 802.11-1997 for 1 and 2 Mbps through 5.5 and 11 Mbps rates. No other Wi-Fi standards used DSSS.
- kingbirdy 8y ago
  I think this is why they didn't give the numbers for the early versions
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  I think 802.11-1997 works as 0 in this case. The implication from the Wi-Fi Alliance seems to be they are counting consumer hardware generations, and there doesn't seem to have been much consumer hardware that was directly 802.11-1997 (it took b to get consumer adoption). Which is why the order I've heard that makes the most sense is 1 (b), 2 (a), 3 (g), because that was roughly the consumer hardwave waves, with the brief (a) hardware wave the fun out-of-order one.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    a and b were specced at the same time though, so it's really weird to look at a+b+g as anything other than two generations.
rythie 8y ago
> Wi-Fi Alliance is naming the not-yet-complete IEEE 802.11ax standard as Wi-Fi 6, with ac being 5, and n being 4. One can guess then a is supposed to 1, b as 2, and g as 3, but this isn't mentioned anywhere I can see. Most 802.11b and 802.11g devices didn't support 802.11a (due to it requiring 5Ghz), so I'm guessing version 1 is 802.11 and 802.11a isn't part of the version numbers.
- cesarb 8y ago
  I would put 802.11a as 3 together with 802.11g, since they have the same rates (and are basically the same tech in a different band, 802.11g feels like 802.11a ported to 2.4GHz plus some extra compatibility stuff).
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    It sounds like the Wi-Fi Alliance doesn't particularly care which one is 1, 2, and 3. They've only strongly defined 4 (n), 5 (ac), and 6 (ax). [1] It also sounds like they don't think enough devices are left in the wild of a, b, g, to worry about branding them. The best description I've heard for 1-3 was to use roughly the consumer hardware adoption curve which was 1 (b), [briefly] 2 (a), 3 (g). [1] https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi
deleted 8y ago
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all_blue_chucks 8y ago
Does that make the original 802.11 "Wi-Fi 0"?

mtgx 8y ago

802.11ax is 802.11n's true successor and I hope it will be adopted quickly by everyone. 802.11ac for the 5GHz band was a faux successor, in my opinion, as you couldn't use it in the same scenarios. It came with some higher performance, but with major compromises in reach for a typical home. Wi-Fi 6/802.11ax should last for a while, so I hope the Wi-Fi Alliance starts focusing on an actual long-range standard that's more of a competitor to LTE but that works in the unlicensed spectrum and for distances of 1km or longer. Then it needs to incentivize smartphone makers or smartphone modem makers to adopt it so that everyone will have it. This would remove the biggest obstacle towards having a real meshnet.

garmaine 8y ago
WiMax?
- DiabloD3 8y ago
  WiMax is an LTE alternative designed by an IEEE 802 committee. It is designed for last mile delivery and also meets the requirements to be considered a 4G and 5G protocol. Although technically superior to LTE, phone companies (outside of Sprint, in the US at least) chose not to deploy it as it was not based on existing protocols (GSM and CDMA), even though that isn't an actual legitimate reason, as "true" LTE requires VoLTE deployment, which phone companies refused to do until forced to; VoLTE-enabled handsets perform a lot better than their pre-VoLTE or VoLTE-disabled siblings purely because of not needing to waste valuable spectrum on 3G connections, allowing that band to be reassigned to a 4G radio on the tower. On top of the VoLTE debacle, companies invested in the GSM and CDMA monopoly tried to claim WiMax did not perform well at long distances, the same distances that LTE does not work well with today (found frequently in rural areas in the US, or similarly in areas heavily shadowed by hills or tall buildings); however the adoption of 600/700mhz to fill in those gaps (plus the forced adoption of VoLTE to improve spectrum usage) has proven that to be false. LTE in areas that are partly covered by existing bands, with the gaps filled in by 600/700mhz, have finally caught up to WiMax in real world testing. Interestingly, Asia has adopted WiMax heavily but may be switching to LTE in the future for 5G deployment, even though WiMax beat LTE-A to the commercial gigabit deployment milestone, due to these continued misconceptions. Africa's few networks that were WiMAX are (or have already) switched to LTE (driving up the cost, and lowering the reliability of their networks). The one place WiMax survived in the US was fixed broadband links (as this is what WiMax was originally designed for, until it merged with Korea's WiBro spec more than a decade ago), but that seems to be finally being replaced in favor with LTE-A's fixed profiles. WiMax will probably beat LTE to working gigabit deployments, although you'll need to live in Asia for this to be relevant to you. WiMax is not related to WiFi; although the actual underlying technology of all standards are rapidly converging, they are designed for different purposes.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

This is just such a sensible change, it's amazing it took everyone this long to come up with it. Figuring out whether something is b, g, n, ac, etc. and then trying to remember which one comes next (ax) is just not going to filter down to the regular consumer like... ever. I can definitely see perks both in "hey, that's the newer network, it's got a higher version number", and "oh, I guess I do need to buy a new Wi-Fi device, it only supports version 4", etc.

chrisfinazzo 8y ago
At the same time, some version numbers are meaningless (because Chrome), so I'm ambivalent about the change. Still, this should make it easier for mere mortals to understand.
- sp332 8y ago
  True, but Chrome also de-emphasized the version number. I don't usually remember what version I'm on, and the only place most people might see it is when they manually check for a new version. Wi-Fi 6 is going to be used a lot in branding.
- theandrewbailey 8y ago
  At least there's not a new version of WiFi every 6-8 weeks.
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  I don't know about "meaningless" as much as "not something normal people need to care about."

shmerl 8y ago

Looks like penetration and range decrease with each new WiFi generation.

astrodust 8y ago
It's not a bad thing. Base stations are cheap and it's better than having everyone's network clog everyone else's. As someone who lives within reach of 30+ networks, this is a step up.
kalleboo 8y ago
Not really. There's only the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz split. And the problem with "long range" is that everyone who doesn't live in a detached suburban house now has massive noise on the 2.4 GHz band from their 20 neighbors so that everyone gets terrible speeds. The weaker penetration/range of 5 GHz solves that by right-sizing everyone's network. edit: researching the updates in 802.11ax, it looks like Wi-Fi 6 will bring the improvements from 802.11ac to 2.4 GHz as well, so it will actually improve performance for people who need range as well. It also has guard interval improvements for outdoor environments.
- kbirkeland 8y ago
  The larger problem with the 2.4 GHz ISM band is the lack of non-overlapping channels along with only one station being able to transmit at a time per channel (in pre 802.11ax). There are only three non-overlapping 20 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz unlicensed spectrum, where 5 GHz spectrum has about 21 (although some require active radar avoidance).
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > The larger problem with the 2.4 GHz ISM band is ... only one station being able to transmit at a time per channel Is there any Wifi tech for which that isn't true, sans beam-shaping and other tech that effectively puts stations on different physical networks? How do 5 GHz technologies handle multiple simultaneous broadcasts on the same channel? How will 802.11ax do it? Signal processing? My impression, based on only a little research, is that it's impossible with any tech. Even cell providers need CDMA, TDMA, etc. Maybe that understanding is out of date?

joemi 8y ago

FINALLY. Confusing version numbering always annoys me, and wifi's "n", "ac", "g", etc version names (combined with the easy to get wrong "802.11") have been one of the biggest offenders for a while. When a version number is a marketable metric, it should not be confusing. Others notable offenders that jump to mind: the Xbox range (Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One X), iPhone SE and XR (since they break the pattern all the rest fit in).

danggg 8y ago
It’s only you though... I find them very easy to follow.
reaperducer 8y ago
Maybe there's someone with a sense of humor there and Wifi 9 will be skipped as a dig at both Microsoft and Apple. Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone X Wifi 6, Wifi 7, Wifi 8, Wifi Ten
- piotrkubisa 8y ago
  Well, I think they have already skipped 802.11ad which initially looked like a next version. Personally, I know only one router available to casual consumer made by Netgear [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Standards_and_amendments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11#Standards_and_amen... [1]: http://www.za.netgear.com/landings/ad7200/default.aspx http://www.za.netgear.com/landings/ad7200/default.aspx
- HankB99 8y ago
  I was looking for an opportunity to say something similar. I didn't realize there was that much prior art!
tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
Add the "Pixel" range to confusing version numbering: "Chromebook Pixel" (a Chromebook released in 2013, commonly called just "Pixel") "Chromebook Pixel" (a Chromebook released in 2015, commonly called "Pixel 2") "Pixel" (a phone released in 2016) "Pixel 2" (a phone released in 2017) "Pixelbook" (a Chromebook released in 2017) Or even worse, the Moto ranges: "Moto G" (a phone released in 2013) "Moto G" (a phone released in 2014) "Moto G" (a phone released in 2015) Luckily, they have learned from their horribleness and now officially include the generation in the name, making their new naming scheme one of the best: Moto G5 (5th generation of their mid-range phone) Compare with Nokia: Nokia 1 Nokia 2 Nokia 2.1 Nokia 3 Nokia 3.1 Nokia 5 Nokia 5.1 Nokia 5.1 Plus / Nokia X5 Nokia 6 Nokia 6.1 Nokia 6.1 Plus / Nokia X6 Nokia 7 Nokia 7 Plus Nokia 8 Nokia 8 Sirocco I have no clue what is what and it's confusing enough that I don't want to buy their phones even though one of them is most likely exactly what I want (high-range but not top-range phone that has stock or near-stock Android and receives updates quickly).

dev_dull 8y ago

From Wikipedi: >Though the nominal data rate is just 37% higher than IEEE 802.11ac, the new amendment is expected to achieve a 4× increase to user throughput due to more efficient spectrum utilization. >IEEE 802.11ax is due to be publicly released sometime in 2019.[2] Devices were presented at CES 2018 that showed a top speed of 11 Gbit/s.[3] Sounds good but with limited practical value while broadband speeds stay so limited in home. For businesses this would make a big difference (for example editing HD video over WiFi).

jessriedel 8y ago
I suspect for most WiFi users, the overwhelming need is more reliable and fast establishment of connection. I waste vastly more time trying to deal with flaky connections, reconnection after wake from sleep, and network priority issues than I do waiting in the rare cases the WiFi is limiting thd data transfer rate (rather than the wired connection). The timescales involved in making Wifi connections should be ms or less, not human-noticeable (order 10 sec).
- ericd 8y ago
  I've found Macs to be vastly better at this than my Linux/windows laptops, for some reason, to the point where I almost never wait for them to connect. Might just be some aggressive workarounds they've implemented, though.
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    I've seen Connman connect in under a second IIRC, on am embedded system. Proper PCs usually use wpa_supplicant, NetworkManager and some DHCP client, none of which are very fast. Connman doesn't seem to handle all possible situations like NetworkManager, though, and its developers only seem to do (or approve patches for) whatever Intel management tells them to do.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    IME, Macs connect faster when the signal is strong. But on a weaker link, it takes just as long as my Windows and Linux machines.

riffic 8y ago

This is so dumb, no one's even using Wi-Fi 1 through 5 yet.

craftyguy 8y ago
> no one's even using Wi-Fi 1 through 5 yet. Yea they are.

schen57 8y ago

Can someone explain what this means for consumers? Who benefits the most from this new release?

azinman2 8y ago
Ordinary people who go to buy a device can know what “version” a router or laptop/phone supports. It makes it much clearer when comparing two routers which supports newer technology rather than knowing the diff between .ac or .n

Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago

I have a quite long apartment with reception problems in some rooms, and was planning to buy a mesh system (like the TP-Link Deco M9 Plus or similar) to replace my aging range extender (which is stuck on 802.11n now that I have a 802.11ac router). I'm more of a software guy, don't know that much about hardware and networking, so can any expert on these things give an opinion as to whether this is a bad moment to buy it? Would it be better to wait for 802.11ax/6 to arrive? When can we expect to find hardware (such as mesh kits) reliably supporting the new standard?

rayiner 8y ago
802.11ax (or WiFi 6) is going to primarily benefit you at 5 GHz, which is best where you have line-of-sight between the device and the AP. If you're looking into range extenders, you probably don't have line of sight and it's not worth it. Mesh Wifi sucks.[1] It takes Wifi unreliability and latency and compounds it by adding hopes. Just bite the bullet and put in multiple APs, all connected to a router via Ethernet. [1] Mesh [any sort of wireless] sucks.
- fyfy18 8y ago
  > Mesh Wifi sucks. As an alternative for what doesn’t suck, you want multiple hardwired access points. Obviously if you are renting that is tricky though. Ubiquti UAP-PROs are pretty good for home use, and a couple at each end of your apartment would be faster (and probably cheaper) than a prosumer mesh setup.
Brushfire 8y ago
I have 4 eeros in my house and they are amazing and we never have any issues. I'm so glad I ditched all the netgear/d-link/tp-link/whatever garbage. The hardware is fine but the firmware is always shit. Get a set of euros and stop worrying about wifi ever again.

mrb 8y ago

Really good whitepaper on WiFi 6 (802.11ax): https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/white-paper-c11-740788.pdf https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wirele... Also: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/53150/en/ http://www.ni.com/white-paper/53150/en/ Main differences with 802.11ac: - denser subcarriers (or "tones") spacing; they are spaced by 78.125 kHz instead of 312.5 kHz, for example a 80 MHz channel now allows 980 data subcarriers, up from 234. That's a 4.19× improvement (4× higher density doesn't translate in exactly a 4× improvement because 11ac had a bit more "pilot" or "null" subcarriers not used for data.) - new 1024QAM mode (encodes 10 bits per symbol, up from 8 bits with 256QAM). That's a 1.25× improvement. - downside is that the symbol length had to be increased from 3.2 µs to 12.8 µs, and the symbol interval too from 0.4 µs to 0.8 µs. That's a 3.78× reduction in efficiency. So the maximum data rate for a single stream on a 80 MHz channel increased by 4.19×1.25/3.78 = 1.39× between WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 (you can confirm it with published max data rate: 802.11ac = 433 Mbit/s, 802.11ax = 600 Mbit/s; and 600/433 = 1.39). But the best feature of WiFi 6 is that different subcarriers can be concurrently used by different users, what they dubbed OFDMA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiple_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_...). This means that during the same 12.8 µs timeslot, even on a small channel like 20 MHz, you can have 9 concurrent users each assigned 26 subcarriers and each transmitting 26 different symbols (total of 234 symbols transmitted concurrently.) Whereas with WiFi 5, all subcarriers of the 20 MHz channel have to be used by the same user.

zaroth 8y ago
Great information! I wonder how the subcarrier allotments are orchestrated, particularly under hidden neighbor conditions. Presumably the AP has to orchestrate it based on QoS settings, but the client-OS will need upgrades throughout the stack to signal how much bandwidth should be allotted/reserved at different times. Sounds complicated and tricky, and not likely to work very well for devices where bandwidth requirements are extremely bursty and unpredictable.
ricardobeat 8y ago
Due to the increased efficiency, the speed increase is supposed to be much higher. At CES they showed up to 11Gbits: https://www.zdnet.com/article/d-link-asus-tout-802-11ax-wi-fi-routers-but-youll-have-to-wait-until-later-in-2018/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/d-link-asus-tout-802-11ax-wi-f...

yholio 8y ago

This time, maybe they hire some cryptographers too instead of letting the network engineers design the security features. For crying out loud, they took their sweet 20 years to actually create a protocol with forward secrecy and resistant to offline attacks - WPA3.

femto 8y ago

Cunning. Why have 5G, when you can have Wi-Fi 6? I'd posit that this renaming is part of the ongoing competition between Wi-Fi and LTE, and prompted by the advent of 5G?

sargun 8y ago

It’s kinda a bummer to see 802.11ad being ignored. I use 802.11ad for game streaming in my house, and it’s great. It’s also great for the “access point per room” story, if there was a mechanism to have cheaper APs and do hand off.

bjoli 8y ago
I suspect the numbering will only be used for more or less backwards compatible standards. I doubt they will break compatibility with N anytime soon.

ezoe 8y ago

I like new numbering system which allows me to quickly deduce the generation of standards. No more a/b/g/n/a-something.

ksec 8y ago

WiFi 6, or 802.11ax, has been in development for sometime and faces lots of difficulties and controversies. First it was discovered all the major companies were working behind close door forming a group called Densi-Fi, trying to super speed the spec, or more like neglecting all the issues around it and push forward the time to market. This has been discover by some other IEEE members, and the problem has since been "resolved". The Density-Fi section in 802.11ax has since be deleted from Wiki, despite many attempts to bring it back. The 802.11ax committees continue to push forward and correct me if I am wrong, are there any other IEEE spec that failed to pass in all of its Draft? Draft 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 for 802.11ax all failed to pass the vote. With Draft 4.0 being pushed and forcibly passed, while all the comments ( ~2300 of it ) being the same and unresolved as Draft 3.0. Much like 802.11ac there will be Wave 1 and Wave 2. Wave 1 does not include Uplink MU-MIMO, 80+80Mhz Channels and some other things I don't remember on top of my head. I am not sure what to make of this. Because it reads to me as a giant pile of mess and I don't want to be the guinea pig for this new spec.