Wi-Fi 6: A Critical Wireless Communication Technology - IPWatchdog.com

“Wi-Fi 6 was created to beryllium much than a specified incremental upgrade implicit Wi-Fi 5, but alternatively a revolutionary exertion reflecting important technological changes that payment the billions of presently enabled and aboriginal enabled Wi-Fi devices astir the world.”

The latest mainstream mentation of the ubiquitous Wi-Fi standard, known arsenic IEEE 802.11ax oregon “Wi-Fi 6,” offers important technological improvements implicit accepted Wi-Fi, including Wi-Fi 6’s contiguous predecessor—Wi-Fi 5 (IEEE 802.11ac). In particular, Wi-Fi 6 offers faster performance, little powerfulness consumption, and amended artillery life, each portion enabling reduced web congestion and latency. These important improvements made implicit adjacent the contiguous predecessor successful Wi-Fi exertion are made imaginable by respective cardinal technological advances.

Wi-Fi 6 has enjoyed bully timing arsenic well—its benefits are invaluable and indispensable improvements arsenic consumers and enterprises progressively look for high-speed connectivity crossed a wide and ever broadening array of devices and uses, including the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented/virtual world (AR/VR), and autonomous vehicles. While IoT and AR/VR devices person been astir for respective years, the adoption of specified technologies has been delayed, successful part, by web velocity and congestion, a occupation that Wi-Fi 6 straight addresses.

Why Wi-Fi 6 Matters

Wi-Fi has been indispensable exertion successful the past 2 decades for connecting devices to the Internet wirelessly, allowing users to stay untethered by wires and avoiding the request to ligament homes and businesses oregon see other ports to link devices. Recently, Wi-Fi usage has accrued importantly arsenic consumers and enterprises link much devices to the Internet to powerfulness IoT and AR/VR technologies. It should hardly travel arsenic a daze to anyone that idiosyncratic habits person changed successful caller years with ever much Internet bandwidth focused connected large-scale video depletion and changing workplaces, including during the COVID-19 pandemic and aftermath. All of this has led to the necessity for much entree points (e.g., workers requiring high-speed connectivity successful their homes alternatively of utilizing existing in-office connectivity), a request for little latency, and further throughput demands (e.g., high-bandwidth video conferencing successful spot of in-person meetings).

Prior to the beingness of Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi capableness up done Wi-Fi 5 was not technologically precocious capable to support up with the increasing and aboriginal expected high-capacity, low-latency, and high-throughput requirements for Wi-Fi, peculiarly successful high-density venues specified arsenic proscription centers, stadiums, and normal centers. Wi-Fi 6 was created to beryllium much than a specified incremental upgrade implicit Wi-Fi 5, but alternatively a revolutionary exertion reflecting important technological changes that payment the billions of presently enabled and aboriginal enabled Wi-Fi devices astir the world.

For example, Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) is simply a aggregate entree strategy for aggregate users based connected OFDM. OFDM was invented decades agone and, astatine a precocious level, divides up a ample transmission into aggregate smaller signals that are transmitted simultaneously without interference owed to the orthogonality of the aggregate smaller signals. The superior payment of OFDMA implicit OFDM is that an full transmission tin beryllium allocated to a azygous idiosyncratic astatine a clip oregon it whitethorn beryllium partitioned to service aggregate users simultaneously, depending connected the needs of the channel. This flexibility creates greater throughput and functionality for modern Wi-Fi needs. Similarly, the subcarrier spacing successful Wi-Fi 6 is 78.125 kHz, 25% of the subcarrier spacing of the 312.5 KHz of Wi-Fi 5. In different words, the “density” of information transmissions successful Wi-Fi 6 tin beryllium 4 times greater than successful Wi-Fi 5, which offers important advantages.

Multi-user, multi-input, multiple-output (MU-MIMO) exertion for the uplink transmission is different cardinal enhancement successful Wi-Fi 6, allowing a azygous entree constituent (e.g., router) to pass with aggregate clients (e.g., compartment phones) simultaneously. For example, Wi-Fi 6’s MU-MIMO for uplink allows aggregate clients to nonstop acknowledgement responses simultaneously, frankincense reducing effect time. MU-MIMO tends to enactment champion for aggregate users with afloat buffer postulation that are communicating with an entree constituent wrong a mid-range distance.

A 3rd important alteration successful Wi-Fi 6 are modifications to the carnal furniture (PHY) and mean entree power (MAC) furniture for high-efficiency operation. One illustration of a PHY furniture alteration is the modulation from 1024 QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) for Wi-Fi 6, which is 4 times higher than the 256 QAM successful Wi-Fi 5 and 16 times higher than the 64 QAM successful Wi-Fi 4. This higher QAM increases the modulation complaint for transmission during highest information transportation periods.

The Technological Origins of Wi-Fi 6

Technology standards, including the Wi-Fi standard, are promulgated by worldwide exertion experts, typically from starring exertion companies, who unneurotic assemble to comprise what are known arsenic modular mounting organizations (SSOs). Wi-Fi protocols are created arsenic portion of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) nonrecreational organization. Worldwide exertion companies enactment astatine differing levels successful creating and modifying the Wi-Fi standard, with immoderate taking a starring innovation relation (while others thin to enactment connected the sidelines). NGB Corporation to find which entities were the largest participants to Wi-Fi 6 innovations. As portion of its analysis, NGB identified the fig of contributions, oregon proposals for exertion modifications, submitted to the Wi-Fi 6 standard, which showed that Qualcomm, Huawei, Intel, Marvell/NXP, Newracom, and MediaTek had the largest wide fig of contributions, successful that order.  NGB notes that Huawei was the starring contributor earlier Draft 1.0 was released, which included astir of the cardinal features of Wi-Fi 6, whereas Qualcomm accrued its fig of contributions aft Draft 1.0 erstwhile chipset companies started to plan caller chips based connected the merchandise of Draft 1.0.  The database of apical 20 contributors besides includes immoderate of the largest telecommunications, cellular and exertion companies, including Ericsson, Apple, Samsung, LG Electronics, ZTE, among others.

As the NGB study notes, the fig of wide contributions to the modular does not needfully straight equate to the fig of patents indispensable to the Wi-Fi 6 modular arsenic a whole, oregon to the circumstantial improvements that lend importantly to the worth provided by Wi-Fi 6. For example, arguably the astir invaluable exertion enhancement of Wi-Fi 6 is OFDMA due to the fact that of the high-efficiency benefits that it provides to Wi-Fi. For OFDMA-related modular indispensable patents, NGB identified Huawei (#1 OFDMA SEP holder; #2 contributor) and Qualcomm (#2 OFDMA SEP holder; #1 contributor)) arsenic the starring contributors to this cardinal technology. Ultimately, arsenic standards germinate not each of the exertion enhancements of Wi-Fi 6 volition person adjacent worth attributable to the technological, and presumably commercial, occurrence of Wi-Fi 6.

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Author: katie.chizhevskaya