What does wifi 5,wifi 6 mean and what are the basic differences between them and how do they work
In: Technology
The WiFi Alliance decided that their previous naming scheme was too difficult for the normal market. Most people didn’t understand 802.11n vs 802.11ac vs 802.11ax so they decided on a rebranding
802.11ac devices are now WiFi 5 while 802.11ax devices are WiFi 6
The big upgrades with 802.11ax (WiFi 6) is in beamforming between devices and routers. Instead of the router broadcasting the message it wants to send to your phone to everyone within 100 meters, it uses multiple antennas to shape a beam of signal towards your phone so that only people in your general direction get that message. It can then also shape beams in multiple other directions letting it talk to multiple devices at the same time rather than assigning little time slices. They also tweaked how the data is being sent so that in theory you could get 4x the transfer speed, but in reality (aka noisy environments) you’re unlikely to get much of a speedup.
Major downside, unless all of your devices are WiFi 6 you won’t get most of the advantages
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