5 ms·

Wi-Fi is getting its biggest upgrade in 20 years

29 points by ciccionamente 6y ago

ornornor 6y ago
> But “Wi-Fi 6” means your device is still operating on the same old spectrum, so starting later this year, you’ll want to start looking for the label “Wi-Fi 6E.” That stands for “Wi-Fi 6 extended into the 6GHz band.” Why do we keep doing this?? It’s as if we’re trying as hard as we can to confuse consumers... “WiFi 6”? Yeah that’s not WiFi 6ghz, that’s 2.4 and 5. But “WiFi 6E” now that’s 6ghz.
- theandrewbailey 6y ago
  At least they aren't renaming old standards like the USB-IF does.
  - toast0 6y ago
    I think I had seen some references to which letters were now WiFi 4 and 5... But to your point, they haven't turned everything to WiFi 6-full speed (aka slow)
- Sir_Substance 6y ago
  Aaah, fond memories. I was working at an electronics store back when "draft-N" was a thing. Good luck to everyone stuck explaining 6E to impatient 50-something fathers, my thoughts are with you.
  - wmf 6y ago
    Ultimately it won't have to be explained since equipment will just negotiate, but the flip side is that virtually no one will be using 6 GHz for the next ten years or so.
    - tradertef 6y ago
      10 years? Are you crazy.. Article says equipment will be available later this year.
      - wmf 6y ago
        But you need a 6E AP and one or more 6E clients to actually use 6E and most people will just have one or the other.
      - theandrewbailey 6y ago
        Availability isn't usage. Most people don't get new routers every year.
        tradertef 6y ago
        Fair enough but it is not going to take 10 years before people start using this spectrum.
      - detaro 6y ago
        And most people replace their router every 5-10 years when the old one dies. And/or get whatever cheap box their ISP sends them.
    - Sir_Substance 6y ago
      >Ultimately it won't have to be explained If there are two boxes on the shelf, one with "Wifi 6" written on it and the other "Wifi 6E", it will be someones personal hell to explain the difference between the two to a customer who is not technically minded enough to understand "6E is faster, but only if your other devices are also 6E", but is completely obsessed with making the absolute optimal decision about whether the extra $20 is worth it.
- ac29 6y ago
  Because this is consumer branding, the vast majority of which couldnt tell you what frequency their WiFi devices use, or even what a radio frequency is. They can understand that Wifi 6 is newer than Wifi 5 and so on. Maybe 6E should have been called Wifi 7 or 6+, but that's a nitpick and just about anything is better than the 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/etc mess.
  - fomine3 6y ago
    But consumer still should know about radio frequency because available distance and bandwidth is very different.
BenjiWiebe 6y ago
This will be great for rural fixed wireless ISPs. The more channels that might not have interference, the better.
- ac29 6y ago
  According to the Ars article, this is for low-power indoor use only. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/the-fcc-ratified-wi-fi-6e-this-morning/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/the-fcc-ratified-wi-...
finnthehuman 6y ago
What a shit headline, and such irony when I click the link and see a giant banner declaring that "explanatory journalism has never been more important." The article starts from the premise that raw spectrum is the way to measure significance of WiFi standard revisions to sell ax as a bigger enhancement over the previous standard than when n or ac hit the market. Then a few paragraphs later The Verge to hedge down into "Will this make Wi-Fi faster? Sort of" and "the new airwaves should help bump your speed up." So, the "biggest upgrade" in 20 years is better throughput for the handful of RF environments where the bottleneck isn't already the uplink? Cool.

29 points by ciccionamente 6y ago

> But “Wi-Fi 6” means your device is still operating on the same old spectrum, so starting later this year, you’ll want to start looking for the label “Wi-Fi 6E.” That stands for “Wi-Fi 6 extended into the 6GHz band.” Why do we keep doing this?? It’s as if we’re trying as hard as we can to confuse consumers... “WiFi 6”? Yeah that’s not WiFi 6ghz, that’s 2.4 and 5. But “WiFi 6E” now that’s 6ghz.

theandrewbailey 6y ago
At least they aren't renaming old standards like the USB-IF does.
- toast0 6y ago
  I think I had seen some references to which letters were now WiFi 4 and 5... But to your point, they haven't turned everything to WiFi 6-full speed (aka slow)
Sir_Substance 6y ago
Aaah, fond memories. I was working at an electronics store back when "draft-N" was a thing. Good luck to everyone stuck explaining 6E to impatient 50-something fathers, my thoughts are with you.
- wmf 6y ago
  Ultimately it won't have to be explained since equipment will just negotiate, but the flip side is that virtually no one will be using 6 GHz for the next ten years or so.
  - tradertef 6y ago
    10 years? Are you crazy.. Article says equipment will be available later this year.
    - wmf 6y ago
      But you need a 6E AP and one or more 6E clients to actually use 6E and most people will just have one or the other.
    - theandrewbailey 6y ago
      Availability isn't usage. Most people don't get new routers every year.
      - tradertef 6y ago
        Fair enough but it is not going to take 10 years before people start using this spectrum.
    - detaro 6y ago
      And most people replace their router every 5-10 years when the old one dies. And/or get whatever cheap box their ISP sends them.
  - Sir_Substance 6y ago
    >Ultimately it won't have to be explained If there are two boxes on the shelf, one with "Wifi 6" written on it and the other "Wifi 6E", it will be someones personal hell to explain the difference between the two to a customer who is not technically minded enough to understand "6E is faster, but only if your other devices are also 6E", but is completely obsessed with making the absolute optimal decision about whether the extra $20 is worth it.
ac29 6y ago
Because this is consumer branding, the vast majority of which couldnt tell you what frequency their WiFi devices use, or even what a radio frequency is. They can understand that Wifi 6 is newer than Wifi 5 and so on. Maybe 6E should have been called Wifi 7 or 6+, but that's a nitpick and just about anything is better than the 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax/etc mess.
- fomine3 6y ago
  But consumer still should know about radio frequency because available distance and bandwidth is very different.

BenjiWiebe 6y ago

This will be great for rural fixed wireless ISPs. The more channels that might not have interference, the better.

ac29 6y ago
According to the Ars article, this is for low-power indoor use only. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/the-fcc-ratified-wi-fi-6e-this-morning/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/04/the-fcc-ratified-wi-...

finnthehuman 6y ago

What a shit headline, and such irony when I click the link and see a giant banner declaring that "explanatory journalism has never been more important." The article starts from the premise that raw spectrum is the way to measure significance of WiFi standard revisions to sell ax as a bigger enhancement over the previous standard than when n or ac hit the market. Then a few paragraphs later The Verge to hedge down into "Will this make Wi-Fi faster? Sort of" and "the new airwaves should help bump your speed up." So, the "biggest upgrade" in 20 years is better throughput for the handful of RF environments where the bottleneck isn't already the uplink? Cool.