What is Wi-Fi 6E: Its Benefits and Drawbacks

Wi-Fi 6E, launched by the Wi-Fi Alliance, is the upcoming standard for the Wi-Fi 6 extension (also known as 802.11ax). Besides the officially supported 2,4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, it allows the operation of features in the unlicensed 6 GHz band.

An additional 1200 MHz of spectrum is available for use in the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi applications. Wi-Fi 6E devices will operate in 14 different 80 MHz channels and 7 additional 160 MHz channels. This broader spectrum simplifies network architecture and offers higher throughput and broader channels with ultimate Wi-Fi efficiency. This eliminates the need for legacy devices to be supported, resulting in less network congestion.

Using this extended 6 GHz spectrum capacity brings the encouraging outlook of ongoing progress through Wi-Fi users’ experience and connected devices. With quicker and more stable Wi-Fi networks, the Wi-Fi 6E standard further enhances the 802.11ax network user experience. This network is intended for soaring user densities and applications with high bandwidth, like video streaming, video conferencing, and voice calls.

Improving the Experience of Users with Wi-Fi 6E

Wi-Fi 6E would allow businesses and service providers to support new and evolving applications and keep each connected device. The devices will be running at an optimal level with the rising demand to link more devices to the network.

By offering additional and contiguous channel bandwidth, the launch of Wi-Fi 6E addresses Wi-Fi spectrum scarcity issues. It serves an ever-growing number of devices at unparalleled speeds. In the 6 GHz band, the added 1200 MHz will enable companies to offer faster, more efficient Wi-Fi networks for businesses. With simplified architectures, these networks would be highly scalable and robust, enhancing their ability to serve more users at multigigabit speeds. It will include many mobiles and IoT devices in very congested environments.

Wi-Fi 6E further improves network bandwidth and performance for challenging and mission-critical applications that need higher throughput, like enterprise video streaming. For vendors, the initial generation of Wi-Fi 6E chipsets is now available to begin developing access points and mobile devices.

In the next two years, Wi-Fi 6E products will be available. As client devices become more commonly available, migration initiatives are likely to be launched by organizations whose specifications go beyond the scope of 802.11ax.

How’s Wi-Fi 6E Operating?

Wi-Fi 6E supports all 802.11ax features and capabilities, but it operates in the 6 GHz band. When connecting various devices running high-bandwidth, low-latency applications, 802.11ax goes beyond improving network speed and incorporates advanced technology to increase overall network performance.

By operating on the 6 GHz band with 14 additional 80 MHz channels and 7 different 160 MHz channels. Wi-Fi 6E networks can offer improved power, thus leveraging these current 802.11ax features:

MU-MIMO, OFDMA, and BSS Color uplink/downlink 8×8 to provide up to four times more power to handle more devices.
Target wake time (TWT) to increase the efficiency of the system’s network and battery life, including that of IoT devices.
1024 quadrature amplitude modulation mode (1024-QAM) to improve throughput by transferring more data in the same amount of spectrum for emerging, bandwidth-intensive uses.

Wi-Fi 6E provides these advantages:

Increased network efficiency and capacity: 5925-7125MHz, including 7 160MHz channels, 14 80MHz channels, 29 40MHz channels, and 60 20MHz channels, 6GHz frequency band range. The capability is more extensive, and the performance is substantially enhanced.
Recent Rate Breakthrough: The Wi-Fi 6E cell phone chip’s maximum theoretical speed is 3.6 Gbps, and the router chip’s maximum theoretical speed is 5.4 Gbps to 10.8 Gbps. Which is significantly improved compared to Wi-Fi 6.
Lower Latency: The current solution also has less than 3 milliseconds of ultra-low latency. The latency in dense environments is decreased by more than 8 times compared to the previous generation. There is a lot of space for use in mobile games and wireless VR.
It provides gigabit-range speeds. It supports a Wi-Fi spectrum of up to 1.2 GHz in the 6 GHz band. Mobile phones can reach speeds of up to 2 Gbps.
It provides greater capacity. Therefore, Wi-Fi 6E supports a more significant number of users compared to traditional Wi-Fi.
As this frequency spectrum is not typical to any wireless home devices, it provides less interference.
Support for broader 80 MHz and 160 MHz BW BW channels (Bandwidth).
In the 6 GHz frequency band, the use of standard Wi-Fi is expanded. Therefore, there is a more contiguous spectrum available for use.