By James Burney | james@smallworldit.com

Why should I Wi-Fi?

We all know the struggles of slow Wi-Fi; it can bring productivity to a halt not to mention Teams meetings. I think we can all agree that Wi-Fi is fantastic when it works, although this often seems like that is only half the time, we are using it. Fortunately, things are about to change for the better as the latest edition to the Wi-Fi family ‘Wi-Fi 6’ will be soon to grace our public and private wireless network spaces. Here are some amazing innovations which Wi-Fi 6 brings to the table, that could seriously improve Wi-Fi in the office and beyond.

Top Speed – Faster than ever

You may be familiar with the idea that more devices, and more people using the Wi-Fi – the slower it will be. It’s likely this will become an antiquated concept because Wi-Fi 6 introduces a platter of new technologies that improve speed when lots of devices are online.

Semiconductor giant, Intel boasts that Wi-Fi 6 will increase average speed per user “by at least four times in dense/congested environments”.

These new technologies include MU-MIMO (Multi-user – Multiple Input Multiple Output), and OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) which are pretty involved concepts. To boil them down, it just means that your router can communicate with all your devices at the same time and do a pretty good job of it too.

Serious about security

The latest Wi-Fi security standard is ‘WPA3’ and it has been around since 2018. WPA standing for  Wi-Fi Protected Access, this is the name given to the way in which your device gets connected to a Wi-Fi signal.  WPA3 makes passwords harder to crack, and makes it harder for attackers to snoop traffic, even if they are connected to the network.

Up until now, WPA3 has been something that providers could optionally include compatibility for. In fact whilst the WPA3 standard has been around since 2018, it has only been mandatory for devices to be WPA3 certified since mid-2020.

Wi-Fi 6 devices MUST be WPA3 certified, and so a purely Wi-Fi 6 based network will see security improvements over an environment with older equipment, or even with a hybrid of Wi-Fi 6 and    Wi-Fi 5 devices.

Save precious battery life

Most devices that we use with Wi-Fi in the office as well as at home, are battery-powered. There are plenty of ways to save power, such as putting these devices to sleep when not in use. Modern devices even have power-saving modes – which when turned on, cut performance in the name of your battery-life.

Wi-Fi 6 aims to reduce battery usage whether your device is online or asleep, using a pre-existing bit of wizardry called TWT (Target Wake Time). TWT has been around since 2017 but is not widely utilized, it allows the router or Wi-Fi emitting device to negotiate with clients when and how they will wake up to receive data. Instead of always having to listen out of new incoming data, your device will be told when to listen out. This means for the rest of the time; the antenna can be powered off and not use any power. Further to this, TWT reduces client contention, as those devices not receiving data will not be causing any interference on the network.

I’m sold, how can I implement Wi-Fi 6 for myself?

Okay, so whilst Wi-Fi does have all the benefits listed above and more, it is still a relatively new technology. This means your existing environment probably can’t handle the new standard IEEE 802.11AX, or probably doesn’t even have the option for it. You can check this by looking for the Wi-Fi 6 certification on your network device.

So, the chances are you will be looking at all new hardware and a for a business or large home deployment, a professional installation may be necessary as well to get the most of out your kit.

If your current Wi-Fi just isn’t cutting it, then why wait to upgrade?

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