Wi-Fi 6 and previous generations of Wi-Fi use the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio bands in our homes and offices today. A “Wi-Fi 6E” device is one that is capable of operating in the 6 GHz band.
Wi-Fi in the 6GHz band means instant performance improvements for Wi-Fi 6 users. There are still interference issues to be resolved; however, opening up 6-GHz frequency bands for Wi-Fi is the right move to ensure that this widely used wireless technology will be able to deliver the performance needed for future applications and networks.
The 6GHz band will only allow operation of Wi-Fi 6 devices, meaning it will be legacy-free. The combination of such a pristine band with no legacy devices, sets up an undertaking the industry has not seen in Wi-Fi in the past 20 years.
Wi-Fi 6E with scheduling techniques, Multi-User, Multi-In Multi-Out (MU-MIMO) and the existence of multiple channels, will enable less collisions and interference between adjacent networks.
As a result, the latency of Wi-Fi 6E services could be consistently as low as 2 milliseconds, which is a huge improvement over operations in the 5GHz band, where latency is typically around a few to 100 milliseconds. The key point here is that the latency will be consistently low. The performance on a single connect with, for example, a smartphone – should be able to exceed 2Gbps rate. This is excellent for video and AR/VR gaming.
In multi-gigabit indoor wireless, with Wi-Fi 6E, we will not run out of capacity for years no matter what is connected to this network, even with hundreds of data hungry devices in service.
In total, the new 6GHz band will allow unlicensed operation in all of the 1.2GHz of spectrum, which means current Wi-Fi operating bands would be more than doubled.
In conclusion, there will be more spectrum with larger channel bandwidth. The 6Ghz band will provide for contiguous spectrum blocks to accommodate additional 80 MHz channels and 160 MHz channels that are absolutely needed for high-bandwidth applications which will need faster data throughput for such applications as high-definition video streaming and virtual reality. Finally, 6E will be able to deliver improved network performance as well as support a greater number of Wi-Fi customers at the same time, even in very dense and congested environments.