Wi-Fi 6th Generation: 802.11ax
Author: Michael
Marked as “Wi-Fi 6,” the 802.11ax standard is expected to be ratified in late 2019 (yes, anything labelled as 802.11ax out there is still at draft stage; Draft 3 of 802.11ax was approved in July 2018). Wireless communication is currently at an important junction as 5G represents a shift in focus to go beyond consumer handsets, to address the networking needs of a much broader group of wireless devices with very divergent requirements. The advent of 5G has sparked some questions about the competitiveness of 5G and potentially displacing Wi-Fi connectivity.
Wi-Fi 6 is the latest iteration of 802.11 standards developed through ratification in the past 20 years, starting with the original standard 802.11a (1997), 802.11b (1999), 802.11g (2003), 802.11n (2009) and 802.11ac (2013). As the successor to the IEEE 802.11ac standard, the most commonly deployed Wi-Fi technology today, 802.11ax’s main enhancement is increasing throughput in high-density deployment. Wi-Fi 6 theoretically supports up to 10 Gbps of wireless throughput.
Main Enhancement: Lower Interference and Latency
Wi-Fi 6 is based on an encoding method called orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA), which helps to divide the spectrum and allocate bandwidth to different user requirements…