The number of devices that use Wi-Fi grows every year. While back in the days, the wireless connection was used mostly by smartphones or laptops, today it can be used even by smart refrigerators and robotic vacuum cleaners. According to the statistics, the number of such devices was about 15 milliards in 2020. And this number may increase to about 20 milliards in 2021. It means that the world needs a new technology that can support many devices simultaneously, with no loss in speed and signal quality. And such technology is represented by the new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) standard. If anyone still didn’t know, Wi-Fi Alliance changed the name of standards into a Wi-Fi 4/5/6 in 2018. Thus, it is high time to find out the advantages of the new standard compared to the previous one, including the difference in speed along with better security solutions and many more improvements.
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Speed
Undoubtedly, most of you will be interested in getting the answer to the question, “How much the data transmission rate will increase?” The difference will not be as big as many would expect. It stands at 30-40%, along with lowering the latency by 75%. Nonetheless, it is not the whole list of improvements that you can get. Wi-Fi 6 brings new 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation (1024-QAM) with increased channel width up to 160 MHz. And that, in turn, should raise the carrying capacity, giving you the ability to watch your favorite series in 8k quality without freezes and buffering, along with uploading or downloading large files at the same time. So, if you are a student who likes to open many tabs and read writepaperfor.me reviews, watching a movie in the background, you will not face any difficulties except for bad perception of info, of course.
Increased battery life
How can Wi-Fi 6 increase your smartphone battery life or any other devices? It happens thanks to the Target Wake Time (TWT). This mechanism emerged back in 2017 in the Wi-Fi HaLow (802.11ah) and was used mainly for remote alarms and different sensors. The new standard has improved TWT greatly, allowing setting the intervals for connecting various devices that do not require a constant wireless connection. In other words, it establishes the time when your device should wake up to obtain or send the data. This mechanism will allow devices to sleep more, increasing the battery life.
Security
Safety always remains the number one priority and is one of the main tasks to be improved. Wi-Fi 6 uses the new security algorithm WPA3 (Wi-Fi Protected Access) to replace the old WPA2, which was presented 17 years ago and had several conceptual shortcomings. One of the main weaknesses of WPA2 was the Key Reinstallation Attack that allowed intruders to hijack TCP connections and get their hands on private information such as passwords or even financial data. WPA3 can provide two types of protection (Personal and Enterprise), eliminating all the weaknesses mentioned above. Personal type uses 128-bit encryption, made for regular users, with a simplified and shorter password for the convenience of memorizing it. Enterprise type uses 192-bit encryption, providing even more protection, made for a governmental network, financial institutions, or corporations. Therefore, thanks to Wi-Fi 6, you don’t need to worry that cybercriminals can steal your data.
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Multi-tasking
Many people might have faced the problem that being in crowded places makes their Wi-Fi connection slower or even freeze. You can notice it in the overcrowded office at work, in your favorite shopping mall, or even at home when many devices use the wireless connection at the same time. For example, you read college-paper.org reviews on your tablet and search for some info on your smartphone while your roommate uses a laptop to watch a video or stream something. This problem should vanish away with the help of Wi-Fi 6; at least, that’s what Intel says. They confidentially state that speed will increase by 400% in crowded areas. In response to the question, “How have they managed to do it?” they say that it is all about the new OFDM mechanism. The working principle of it lies in the division of one big channel into multiple subchannels. Thanks to this mechanism, Wi-Fi 6 can easily interact with multiple devices simultaneously without delays. Also, “MIMO – Multiple in/out” technology was improved with the main feature of answering to more devices at once. Thus, Wi-Fi 6 is making a big advantage in comparison to the older standard.
BSS Color
Let’s imagine a multistory building, where everyone has a Wi-Fi router in their apartment so that they can access the Internet literally from any spot. If you use the old Wi-Fi 5 standard, the network will be overloaded and dramatically slow down due to a small number of channels with a limited spectrum. Thus, when wireless devices use the same channel, they can conflict with each other, causing problems. However, the development of the Wi-Fi 6 has allowed meeting this challenge with a new mechanism, BSS Color. Its operating principle involves the so-called “color coding.” In other words, each package frame is marked, and both user devices and routers get this info to ignore the frames of other networks. Thereby, this technology helps reduce any speed delays and eliminate wave interference (overlapping of two waves or more simultaneously, creating wave amplification or reduction in certain places).
