A lot of marketing speak and not much real content. I found this article by Cisco, which seems a lot better at explaining the importance of 6 GHz<p><a href="https://blogs.cisco.com/enterprise/wi-fis-new-6ghz-spectrum-is-a-new-frontier" rel="nofollow">https://blogs.cisco.com/enterprise/wi-fis-new-6ghz-spectrum-...</a>
Deeply uninspiring.<p>5Ghz gets blocked by the thinnest brick walls. We all live in castles in Europe so 5Ghz <i>practically</i> only works line-of-sight. Makes it pretty expensive and cable-intensive to deploy [well] in a large building.<p>It's also disheartening when a new standard comes out and device manufacturers flock to replace all their old single-radio, single-antenna devices with shiny new... single-radio, single-antenna devices. Wave2/MU-MIMO should be a base requirement.<p>Is there any progress on improving longer band wifi? Ie sub-2.4GHz, or 2.4GHz coordination between masts so devices can actually roam well?
It's actually <i>useful</i> in high density environments to have wireless signals absorbed. Say you're in an office: there may be 3-10 wireless devices per desk. Have those signals reach an access point and then die is a good thing. Another scenario is a stadium. It's best that communication doesn't propogate or reflect or nobody will be getting a communication line.
I understand that not being backwards compatible means new wifi 6 devices can take better advantage of improvements, but it will also probably be a bit of a mess for years while millions of legacy devices muddle on, and years even before manufacturers start making wifi 6 capable hardware the default.<p>Not only that, there's a reason many (most?) smart home devices still only support 2.4ghz, (range, particularly through solid objects I think) and I don't think that is going to change.<p>Or are we going to be stuck with wifi routers that have to implement ever wifi protocol?
I appreciate that they lasted a year before muddying the already foggy "wifi 6" branding by introducing "wifi 6e".<p><pre><code> 802.11
802.11a
802.11b
802.11g
802.11-2007
802.11n
802.11-2012
802.11ac
802.11af
</code></pre>
This is too confusing for consumers, lets drop the letter scheme.<p><pre><code> Wifi 6.
Wifi 6E
</code></pre>
Hold up.
Serious question - is there any reason why naming things with consecutive simple numbers isn't the best approach?<p>WiFi 1, WiFi 2<p>...<p>MacBook Air 1, MacBook Air 2<p>...<p>MacOS 10, MacOS 11<p>I know some of these are already named this way, they're just examples.<p>Using the year would also be a good (or even better) approach, as it gives you two pieces of information.<p>I understand that it may not be the best marketing approach, but it would make life so much easier for consumers - if I need a new anything I want to know exactly which is the latest, if I look at second hand items I want to know how far behind it is quickly, without requiring extensive research.<p>When buying an iPad for instance it took me ages to figure out how far behind the models I was looking at in eBay were...
Is it a universal rule that higher frequency = lower range?<p>The range of 5Ghz is already pretty low and has trouble going through solid materials like concrete. Would 6 be significantly worse?
Sat down, took a deep breath, sigh, wrote some rant, deleted that and rethinking now, it is actually pretty good marketing.<p>All Date are products ( expected ) on the market,<p>WiFI 6. - 2019
WiFi 6E - 2021
WiFi 7 - 2023<p>Basically every two year you have a new marketing name to sell. Which is a lot easier for consumers and sales people. Since you need to go through FCC certification for using the new spectrum I assume the likelihood of having your existing WiFi 6 client and router upgradeable to be extremely unlikely.<p>Then there is 802.11ax / WiFi6 Wave 2, which is similar to 802.11ac / WiFi 5 Wave 2 if anyone remember, with additional features that was originally missing from the wave 1. On top of my head they were mainly features related to UL MU-MIMO. I assume those might come with WiFi 6E too.<p>And none of the current WiFi 6 on Smartphone supports 160Mhz Channels, so WiFi 6E is another possible candidate to include that on a Smartphone. Another selling point to push for upgrade. ( I am not saying consumer will upgrade because of that, but at least there is one more point to think about what they have now is old, and requires upgrade. It is important to note consumer here implies normal people who are not tech-savvy )<p>My beloved NetBSD running WiFi 5 / 802.11ac AirPort Extreme came out nearly 7 years ago and it is still working near to perfection. Had always been planning to upgrade it once a WiFi 6 version comes, but unfortunately Apple discontinued it. But the stubborn Apple changed their mind on Keyboard, may be they will do that too for Airport.
Am I the only one concerned about the impact on health? A higher frequency is generally worse for living organisms, and personally I don't need a higher speed than 4Mb/s