Faster Wi-Fi Officially Launches Today (theverge.com) 30
The Wi-Fi Alliance, the organization that oversees implementation of the Wi-Fi standard, is launching its official Wi-Fi 6 certification program. "That might sound boring, but it means the Wi-Fi 6 standard is truly ready to go, and tech companies will soon be able to advertise their products -- mostly brand new ones -- as certified to properly support Wi-Fi 6," reports The Verge. From the report: So the point of Wi-Fi 6 is to boost speeds within a crowded network. The theoretical maximum speed for Wi-Fi is increasing, too -- to 9.6 Gbps from 3.5 Gbps -- but those numbers don't really matter since you'll never get them at home. What matters is that Wi-Fi 6 has a bunch of tools allowing it to operate faster and deliver more data at once, so the speeds you actually get will be higher than before. Those gains will be most noticeable on crowded networks, where the efficiency improvements will make up for the higher Wi-Fi demands. (Wi-Fi 6 also mandates a major security improvement.)
Really, though, today's launch is largely a formality. The Wi-Fi certification program -- while important, and very much marking the beginning of the Wi-Fi 6 era -- isn't required, and companies have been rolling out Wi-Fi 6 devices for months that likely work just fine. But the Wi-Fi Alliance is made up of members of the tech industry big and small, and its actions represent what wireless features and technologies they're interested in delivering, so this is a clear sign that Wi-Fi 6 has arrived. All that said, this week's biggest news for Wi-Fi 6 has no immediate connection to the Alliance: it's that the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro go on sale, and both support Wi-Fi 6. That's going to quickly put millions of Wi-Fi 6 devices into people's hands, meaning adoption of the new tech will very suddenly be well underway.
Really, though, today's launch is largely a formality. The Wi-Fi certification program -- while important, and very much marking the beginning of the Wi-Fi 6 era -- isn't required, and companies have been rolling out Wi-Fi 6 devices for months that likely work just fine. But the Wi-Fi Alliance is made up of members of the tech industry big and small, and its actions represent what wireless features and technologies they're interested in delivering, so this is a clear sign that Wi-Fi 6 has arrived. All that said, this week's biggest news for Wi-Fi 6 has no immediate connection to the Alliance: it's that the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro go on sale, and both support Wi-Fi 6. That's going to quickly put millions of Wi-Fi 6 devices into people's hands, meaning adoption of the new tech will very suddenly be well underway.
What will I get at home? (Score:5, Interesting)
That would have been nice to see in the summary.
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Yes. That is the purpose. Buy again everything you bought before and throw the old crap in the dustbin.
That is why I do not use WiFi, I use these things called WIRES.
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Yes. That is the purpose. Buy again everything you bought before and throw the old crap in the dustbin.
That is why I do not use WiFi, I use these things called WIRES.
Yes. Because we never upgrade wired Ethernet... oh. wait.
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Does this mean home users will require new hardware - router, computer, phone, TV interface (Chromcast, etc.) or any other equipment that uses Wi-Fi?
The equipment is backwards compatible [arstechnica.com]. A new router will work with the old devices, new devices will work with an old router. So if you just replace on your normal schedule, eventually more and more of it will support the new standard.
Of course, to see any benefit at least the router and one device must support the new standard - but everything will operate as today until you get that.
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It won't make much difference at all at home.
You can get gigabit speed wifi now, but your devices don't have enough antennas to actually get that speed. Instead the idea is that the router can talk to multiple devices at once and supply a total of 1GB+ spread among all of them.
Wifi 6 expands on this and has a lot of features that should make it work better in areas with dozens or hundreds of devices, like airports. At home there are a few benefits but you aren't going to suddenly see gigabit+ file transfer
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1GB+ or 1Gb+? The difference between Byte and Bit is important here.
But if you look at 802.11ay you have a theoretical max of 176Gbps, even if you probably would get less than that. In any case it would be good enough for home use.
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That would have been nice to see in the summary.
9.6Gbps with a margin of error of -9.6Gbps
802.11ax (Score:4, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It's about time too. We've been referring to the WiFi standards by their IEEE spec number for way too long. It was becoming a pain to try to get regular people to remember the alpha-numeric soup of "802.11xx" when telling them which WiFi card to get. I don't know of any other widely-adopted standard which is referred to this way. We don't call them
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Ah, 802.11ax. Weird that I've never heard "Wifi 6" until today/launch day.
You should read more Slashdot https://mobile.slashdot.org/st... [slashdot.org]
Will it help me now? (Score:2)
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It will create flexibility and improve your old router by leveraging multiple decades of high throughout experience to create synergies with highly-available cloud microrouting paradigms.
Okay, I can't take any more of that. ;)
Router/AP support (Score:1)
As cool as this new standard is, I'd love to find a decent AP that can support it. The only ones I'm seeing now are all over $200-300 and have crap reviews. If it's launching today, you'd think they'd at least have a decent lineup of both budget and premium devices ready for it.
Does anyone have good recommendations for an acceptable $200 AP with good reliability?
Don't buy the first wave of access points (Score:2)
Honestly, I expect these as usual to be buggy and expensive, and lacking on some features originally promised. There should be no rush, specially given the glacial speed of adoption of 802.11ax on the client side. Wait a couple of years, unless you must buy a new home router now.
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I like them for the stability. I had other AC APs in the past, usually just a router I set into AP mode, and it was usually nothing but headaches - devices wouldn't connect, requiring rebooting one or the other, or they'd connect, then disappear,
Got fed up, and set up an Unifi A
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If it's launching today, you'd think they'd at least have a decent lineup of both budget and premium devices ready for it.
Why would you think that? A standard launched, a product is available. I have never seen a standard for anything ever in tech launch with a decent lineup of budget and premium devices. Hell plenty of standards have launched long before products are available for it.
How? (Score:2)
''..the point of Wi-Fi 6 is to boost speeds within a crowded network. ''
Are we going to get microwaves ovens that are compliant on the 2.4ghz side? Every time I start my favorite video viewing website, then start to microwave my TV dinner I have to wait until dinner is ready. What am I supposed to do while I wait? I get hungry watching that website and it ruins my night.
I'm even considering getting some pots and pans to cook the old fashioned way.
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Sorry, pots and pans these days are also 2.4ghz.
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This is the single largest reason to run a 5 ghz network at home. All the cheap crap is on 2.4 ghz.
Faster.. (Score:2)
Re: Faster.. (Score:2)
_Always_ assume the network is hostile.
For Sale (Score:2)
Only $499.99! That's only $4.9999 per device! Special discounts for bulk customers!
Wired when you can, Wireless when you have to (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the mantra I still work to
Deauth? (Score:1)
That's going to quickly put millions of Wi-Fi 6 de (Score:2)
I'm still trying to get five year old Laptops SSD's FFS after getting their RAM booted to 8Gigs.
Noone has the moeny.