Next-generation Wi-Fi is ready and raring to go.
The Wi-Fi Alliance, which oversees implementation of the radio technology, is launching its official Wi-Fi 6 certification program.
Sounds like a snoozefest, I know.
But it means harder, better, faster, stronger access.
Wi-Fi 6 has been percolating for the past year, and now it’s ready to permeate more products, including the Samsung Galaxy Note 10—the first Wi-Fi Certified 6 smartphone.
“High-speed 5G services need Wi-Fi 6 and so do consumers who want to seamlessly share the moments they create on their mobile devices,” according to Inkang Song, vice president of Mobile Tech Strategy and Partnership at Samsung.
Apple’s upcoming iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and Pro Max handsets also support Wi-Fi 6, meaning the new tech will soon reach millions more customers, helping to accelerate adoption.
The central goal of Wi-Fi 6 (or 802.11ax) is to boost connectivity within crowded networks—at home or in the wild.
It is particularly well-suited for airports or sports stadiums, where hundreds of thousands of devices are vying for a spot on the same Wi-Fi wave. Even busy households can benefit; families often have a dozen or more gadgets connected to the same sardined system.
“Wi-Fi Certified 6 is ushering in a new era of Wi-Fi, building on [its] core characteristics to provide better performance in every environment for users, great network capacity for service providers to improve coverage for their customers, and new opportunities for advanced applications,” Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance, said in a statement.
“[It] will deliver improvements in connectivity,” he added, “including in high-density locations and IoT environments.”
The theoretical maximum speed for Wi-Fi is also increasing—from 3.5 Gbps to a whopping 9.6 Gbps. But, as The Verge pointed out, “those numbers don’t really matter since you’ll never get them at home.”
Wi-Fi 6-friendly routers from Cisco, Netgear, Asus, and TP-Link are already rolling out the next-gen technology; mesh options for the Netgear Orbi and TP-Link Deco lineups are expected later this year.
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