What is WiFi 6

The question on many internet users mouth is: “What is WiFi 6?” Phonefic Technology has the best answer to the question. Wi – Fi 6 is the latest wireless networking standard on the market. This technology, made official in September 2019, brings important advances when compared to Wi-Fi 5, such as higher speed and better efficiency in high traffic demand. But what is Wi-Fi 6 anyway ? Below, I will explain more details about it.

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Wi-Fi 6 is designed to alleviate network congestion and provide greater capacity. One of the key features of this standard is support for the OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) specification, which subdivides channels with up to 30 devices to improve connection efficiency and decrease latency.

OFDMA is able to assign small time slots to each device to analyze the available channels. For example, if one device is playing a movie in high resolution and another is just looking at social networks, the router identifies bandwidth consumption and assigns channels as needed to avoid congestion.

Another highlight of Wi-Fi 6 is support for eight MU-MIMO (Multi User MIMO) streams. This technology allows the router to transmit data to multiple devices at the same time instead of one by one, causing bandwidth to be shared efficiently. Wi-Fi 5, on the other hand, only offers four streams.

Thanks to 1024 QAM modulation, it is also possible to transmit a greater number of data per hertz. Thus, networks based on Wi-Fi 6 can reach speeds of up to 9.6 Gb/s. This represents a significant improvement when compared to the 6.9 Gb/s of Wi-Fi 5.

WiFi 6 also features Target Wake Time (TWT) technology. With it, devices connected to the network can determine when they will start receiving and sending data, increasing the battery life of smartphones, tablets and other smart devices.

Finally, this new wireless networking standard also delivers WPA3 encryption , which provides greater protection against brute force attacks.

Advantages of Wi-Fi 6

  • Higher speed: Wi-Fi 6 can reach speeds of up to 9.6 Gb/s;
  • Less interference: Routers with Wi-Fi 6 support deliver the BSS Color signature to reduce interference;
  • More connected devices: more devices can be connected without loss of speed;
  • Power Saving: Target Wake Time technology lowers power consumption, increasing device battery life.