What is 802.11ax, Wi-Fi-6, and Wi-Fi 6E?

The demand for wireless access from users has shifted from a luxury, to a necessity. The need for bandwidth is growing exponentially. This has caused network performance to become critical for businesses and consumers alike. Everyone has come to expect their Wi-Fi connection be reliable and fast.

Technology has come a long way in just a few short years. The rapid increase in the need to work from home as well as the types of usage and traffic the networks are contending with has caused the current networks to be over tasked. Because of this the wireless standards need to keep pace. Besides bandwidth, the biggest issue with networks is latency. Latency is the pause in connection as the network tries to keep up with traffic.

This has adverse effects on any live event like video conferencing, gaming, voice, and IoT traffic. To help alleviate the problem of latency, there was a need to develop wireless networks that are more efficient in handling the expanding bandwidth hungry traffic. A new standard called 802.11ax was introduced in 2018. The Wi-Fi Alliance renamed it Wi-Fi 6. One of the main focuses of Wi-Fi 6 was to enhance the efficiency of how access points handle multiple devices.