5g is the most popular communication technology at present. However, the innovation of the network technology is not limited to 5g. With Wi Fi 6 recently attracted much more attention recently, the latest wireless local area network standard will play a role in the future when the scale of equipment will further explode, moreover, it will become the preferred technology for building wireless network in home, office and public places.

What is Wi Fi 6?

Wi Fi 6 standard was officially released in mid-2019, which is the latest version of IEEE 802.11 WLAN standard. It provides compatibility with previous network standards, including 802.11n/ac, which is now the mainstream. IEEE 802.11ax is the name defined by the Institute of electrical and electronic engineers. The Wi Fi alliance responsible for commercial certification is called Wi Fi 6 for the convenience of publicity.

The previous 802.11n/ac was also renamed Wi Fi 4 and Wi Fi 5 in this renaming campaign. This is a great benefit for equipment manufacturers, because they don't have to spend any more time educating users or coming up with fancy marketing terms. Instead, they just need simple numbers to show the pros and cons of their products.

The birth of the name Wi Fi 6 has brought this technology closer to consumers. Take 5g for example, it has become an easy to understand technical term. Wi Fi is no longer a pure technical standard as it began to transform into a consumer oriented commercial brand, which shows that a broader prospect in the evolution of network technology.

Moreover, Wi Fi 6 has introduced a number of new technologies, which have greatly improved the communication quality, transmission efficiency, energy consumption performance and multi device accommodation of wireless networks. The theoretical maximum rate of the 160 MHz channel can reach 9.6 Gbps.

The introduction of OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division multiple access) makes the data content in the transmission no longer occupy the whole channel rigidly, but divides the data into more detailed resource blocks for management and transmission, so as to realize the more efficient utilization of the network. Just like a large truck carrying goods, from a truck of any size can only pull one kind of goods to a reasonable distribution, each truck is full, so it can maximize the single transportation volume.

TWT (time wake-up) makes Wi Fi 6 more power-saving, which is helpful for mobile devices such as mobile phones and Internet of things devices. The connection between the device and the wireless router will have regular sleep and wake-up, which is equivalent to the combination of work and rest instead of working all day, which improves the power consumption performance and transmission efficiency of both sides.

The modulation mode enhanced to 1024-qam makes the data receiving and sending process more closely, and can transmit more information under the same signal. Compared with the 256-qam of Wi Fi 5, the maximum speed can be increased by 25%. Wi Fi 6 also uses 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands at the same time. Multi band transceiver reduces the embarrassing situation of network congestion and idle.

BSS coloring gives the signal source its own "colors", and up to 63 "colors" give mobile phones and other terminals an efficient way to find routers. As different takeout services have different theme colors, routers and terminal devices can find each other more accurately and efficiently after dyeing, and the communication power and time consumption can be reduced.

MU-MIMO technology is used in both uplink and downlink of Wi Fi 6, which enables routers to communicate with multiple terminal devices at the same time with multiple antennas, so as to achieve "multi-purpose". Compared with the past design of single antenna and single device communication, MU-MIMO is more capable of improving network speed and connecting more devices.

In general, the change of Wi Fi 6 shows that WLAN technology embraces the changes of the times. It not only follows up the improvement of wired network bandwidth, but also takes the utilization efficiency as the optimization focus. At the same time, it is also noted that the popularity of mobile phones as personal mobile terminals, as well as the popularity of various Internet of things devices, make multi device connection have more potential.

Why is the era of Wi Fi 6 coming?

When a new standard becomes a standard product configuration and is popularized in the market, it often needs to go through the process of standard release, relevant components follow-up, product listing, and finally reduce the cost and price to be widely accepted by consumers. It's less than half a year before the official release, and the early version has only been released for nearly two years. How can Wi Fi 6 usher in its own era so quickly?

Although routers have not been replaced for a long time, most consumers have not realized the value of high price products. As the first batch of Wi Fi 6 products, routers are high-end products with a price of 3000 yuan, and there are no mid-end and low-end products coming out soon. It seems that the popularity of routers is far away.

The main reason for the accelerated popularity of Wi Fi 6 is the enthusiasm of mobile phone manufacturers in introducing new standards, and high-end products have played a pioneering role in the whole market. The two flagship mobile phone products in 2019, the galaxy S10 series and the iPhone 11 series, have taken the lead in applying this technology, making Wi Fi 6 more visible to consumers with a larger base.

At the same time, Wi Fi 6 standard was officially released, which made the related products of upstream manufacturers enter the market one after another. The appearance of router chips, PC network cards, mobile phone chips and other products makes it possible to build an ecosystem based on Wi Fi 6, covering the positioning of high, medium and low-end, and promoting the explosion of terminal products.

Personal terminal products based on mobile phones and laptops show consumers' demand for network improvement, forcing router manufacturers to follow up on relevant products. The high-end mobile phone chips led by Qualcomm snapdragon 865 and MediaTek Tianji 1000 will provide Wi Fi 6 support for new mobile phones in 2020, and Wi Fi 6 notebooks have also gone down from 10000 yuan to 4000 yuan.

The emergence of popular products on a large scale is the only way for Wi Fi 6 to become the mainstream wireless network standard, and it is also a necessary process for the public to perceive and improve the experience. Before that, several brands of Wi Fi 6 router products within 1000 yuan were listed in the market. However, due to the high price or the lack of marketing promotion of mobile phone and other terminal products, it did not have a great impact on the consumer group.

Why your next wireless router should have Wi-Fi 6？

Changes in the network environment are also driving the attention of Wi Fi 6. The network speed and quality improvement brought by 5g network is unforgettable to those who have experienced it. However, due to the monthly traffic restriction and 5g coverage, people can not get the same network performance at home or in other indoor environments. As such, consumers are waiting for wireless network upgrade. 

At the same time, Gigabit network began to be popularized in all parts of the country. In the context of the growth rate and the reduction of fees, more families can use the Gigabit Network in Shanghai even with a monthly fee of 199. There are not many routers that can release gigabit network capacity, and this is exactly the scenario where Wi Fi 6 matches the theoretical performance.

The network equipment in many users' homes is about to be upgraded. Most of their routers are still running at 802.11n at 2.4GHz. The theoretical maximum speed of 300mbps is obviously unable to meet the demand of 5g benchmarking and Gigabit speed release.

The unexpected epidemic situation also makes many people realize the shortage of home network, which can not meet the current demand for use, but also drives people's attention to routers to reach a new high in the past year. Under the influence of dual factors, direct use of Wi Fi 6 beyond the weak 11ac will be the subconscious choice of chasing fresh consumers.

There is also the rising demand for smart home in recent years, which will also be the field of Wi Fi 6. Under the background of many manufacturers entering the smart home market one after another, the number and category of devices have been greatly expanded compared with the past, and consumers choose more and more products.

In the long run, there are also streaming media, AR / VR, AI, etc., waiting for the improvement of home network, which is also the demand point of Wi Fi 6. The expectation of large bandwidth, multiple devices, stability and power consumption are all promoting the new network standards to enter the market and turn the originally planned application into reality.

The first year of Wi Fi 6

It can be said that 2020 will be the first year of Wi Fi 6. Although the first batch of products did not enter the market this year, it is expected that the related products, which are really popular to the mass consumers and spread to different consumption levels, will become the mainstream in the market this year. We will continue to pay attention to what kind of performance Wi Fi 6 can bring and what new direction it can lead to. 

With people from the state to the top leading commercial companies, all concern greatly how the new generation of communication technology can improve the performance of mobile phones and make life more beautiful. Let's wait for the fastest connectivity, Wi Fi 6, the next wireless technology.