Hello everyone. In this video we're
going to talk about the 802.11ax wireless standard. Which is more commonly known
as Wi-Fi 6. Now Wi-Fi 6 was released in 2019 and is the latest wireless standard that's used
in wireless devices and is the successor to the 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard which is known as Wi-Fi 5.
Now Wi-Fi 6 is faster than Wi-Fi 5, however speed wasn't necessarily its main goal. The main goal
of Wi-Fi 6 is not just an increase in speed but it was to make a Wi-Fi network perform better when
a lot of devices are connected to it. And this is because today there are so many devices in our
home that use Wi-Fi, such as computers, tablets, phones, security cameras, refrigerators, light
switches, thermostats, and so much more. And with so many devices competing for the Wi-Fi signal, it
can slow down a network because a Wi-Fi router can only communicate with so many devices at a time.
So to meet this demand engineers developed Wi-Fi 6. So what are the differences between Wi-Fi 6
and Wi-Fi 5? Well one of those differences is obviously speed. The older Wi-Fi 5 had a maximum
speed of 3.5 gigabits per second. But with Wi-Fi 6 that speed has been increased to 9.6 gigabits
per second, which is a significant increase. Now keep in mind this increase in speed is shared
across multiple devices. It does not mean that each of your devices will achieve this speed. And
also this speed is on your local area network, meaning in your home or office. This does not mean
that your internet speed will increase. However it will make it seem like it's faster because
of the technology that has been implemented in Wi-Fi 6. Now one of these technologies is
orthogonal frequency-division multiple access or OFDMA. Now this technology lowers latency
and delivers data to multiple devices more efficiently. Fo for example let's say that Wi-Fi
transmissions act like carts that deliver data to Wi-Fi devices. And let's say you have three Wi-Fi
devices. Now with the older Wi-Fi 5 a cart would deliver one piece of data to one device at a time.
So each Wi-Fi device would have to wait their turn to receive data. But with the newer Wi-Fi 6
each cart would carry three pieces of data that would deliver to each device at the same
time. So with Wi-Fi 5 devices will have to wait their turn to receive data. But with Wi-Fi
6 they don't have to wait because they all receive data at the same time. So this makes more
efficient use of data delivery which reduces lag. And another technology that Wi-Fi 6 uses
is MU-MIMO which stands for multiple-user, multiple-input, multiple-output. Now this
technology first made its debut in Wi-Fi 5 version 2. And what this does is that it allows
multiple wireless devices to communicate with a Wi-Fi router at the same time. Now before Wi-Fi 5
routers used SU-MIMO, which stands for Single-User MIMO. And this also allowed Wi-Fi routers to
communicate with multiple devices but only with one device at a time. So each device will have to
wait their turn to communicate with the router. But a router with MU-MIMO, all the devices
that are connected won't have to wait their turn because this allows communication
to multiple devices at the same time. It breaks up the internet bandwidth into
individual streams and pushes it to the connected devices. So with this technology you'll
see a significant improvement in the speed of your internet if you're doing things that require
a lot of bandwidth such as streaming videos or downloading. So as I stated before MU-MIMO debuted
in Wi-Fi 5 version 2, but it has improved in Wi-Fi 6. The difference is is that with Wi-Fi 5 it was
only available in download and it can only support four simultaneous streams. But with Wi-Fi 6
it's available in both upload and download and it can support up to 12 simultaneous
streams. And Wi-Fi 6 also has an improvement in beamforming. Beamforming is a technique that
sends transmissions in a specific direction which strengthens the signal. But without
beamforming, the transmission is sent in every direction which can weaken the signal which
is what happens in older routers. But with newer routers the signal is directed to the devices
that are connected to it. And Wi-Fi 6 also has the ability to minimize interference from nearby
networks. And it does this by using a technology called basic service set coloring. So for example
when you have two Wi-Fi routers next to each other such as what happens with neighbors, the
signals from the two networks can overlap and cause interference with the other signal.
But Wi-Fi 6 with BSS coloring, it colors or marks the networks so it can distinguish another
network from its own. It marks frames from nearby networks so that your router disregards them which
makes your Wi-Fi router more efficient because the less time a Wi-Fi router gets distracted the
more responsive it can be. And as far as security, Wi-Fi 6 has the latest security protocol which is
WPA3. WPA3 provides cutting edge security features that enable a more robust authentication
that will increase protection from password guessing attempts. And in order for a device
to be Wi-Fi 6 certified it must have WPA3. Wi-Fi 6 also has the ability to extend the battery
life in Wi-Fi devices. And it does this by using a technology called Target Wake Time. With
Target Wake Time a router or an access point schedules a time with Wi-Fi devices on when
data is supposed to be sent or received. So according to that scheduled time when Wi-Fi
devices are sending or receiving data, their antennas are powered on. But when
they are not sending or receiving data they go into sleep mode and their antennas
are powered off which saves battery life Now Wi-Fi routers will broadcast a wireless
signal or frequency band so that wireless devices can connect to. And up until now they have been
restricted to broadcasting two frequency bands. Which are 2.4 and 5 gigahertz. However with
the new Wi-Fi 6E it'll broadcast a third band which is 6 gigahertz. The 6 gigahertz band
opens up additional channels for delivering large amounts of data to Wi-Fi devices especially
in crowded environments. These additional channels will result in a better network performance
and a greater capacity to support more users. So who would benefit from a Wi-Fi 6 router?
well if you have a lot of wireless devices, like perhaps 15 or more, then I would definitely
recommend getting one especially if you have closer to 20 devices. Because you're going to
see a big difference in the performance of your network. But you also have to keep in mind that
in order to reap the full benefits of Wi-Fi 6, your devices must be compatible with Wi-Fi 6.
So if you're interested in getting one I'll put a link below in the description of this video of
one that I recommend and thank you for watching.
