WiFi Wednesday: What is WiFi 6E and should you be upgrading?

WiFi Wednesday | What is WiFi 6E and should you be upgrading?

Our resident Network specialist Andrew Fox explores how WiFi is often the forgotten layer of many businesses’ digitalisation strategy, but the fundamental layer to ensure they capitalise on a digital-first world. In this blog, we take a look at providing a simple guide to WiFi 6E and explore if you should be upgrading? What is WiFi 6E? Simply, WiFi 6 is the 6th generation of WiFi and WiFi 6E is the newest WiFi specification standard that provides a business with a truly wired-like wireless experience. WiFi 6E adds support for 6GHz spectrum, plus faster wireless speeds and lower latencies. WiFi 6E enables businesses to scale to support new devices, sensors, and data traversing the network. It has been hailed the solution for IT teams to manage today’s bandwidth-intensive applications and build the capacity required to handle the unknown workloads a dynamic future workforce and customer base will bring. Tech Fact! The Wi-Fi Alliance campaigned to coin the term “WiFi 6” to refer to the IEEE 802.11ax standard, we much prefer the term WiFi 6 What are the benefits of adopting WiFi6? WiFi 6E enables access points to support more clients in dense environments and provides a better experience for users of typical wireless LAN networks. It also provides more-predictable performance for advanced applications with video, high-density, high-definition collaboration apps, all-wireless offices, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Reliable: connects more devices with improved performance
Powerful: Supports new immersive applications and use cases
Simple: Enables easy and seamless integration into 5G networks

Should you upgrade? The world is moving fast into a digital-first world with more people and applications needing to connect to your WiFi infrastructure. To ensure you don’t hinder the customer experience, hybrid working or applications to support operational efficiency you need a more reliable, powerful and simple WiFi network. Take the test and if you read the 6 E’s of WiFi 6E* and think you could benefit from just one of these then you need to upgrade

Extended Spectrum

Having more devices does not have to mean you have more problems. With the number of devices connecting to enterprise networks growing rapidly, there’s a huge need for additional spectrum. The percentage of client devices per access point has seen a massive change since the onset of the pandemic. To support this increase, the extended-spectrum available with WiFi 6E can support more simultaneous user connections to the network at higher speeds and with lower latency. It enables the right people to have the right access to the right network resources at the right time.

Efficient Traffic Management

Are you looking for less network congestion and to stop slow performance? WiFi 6E provides a broader 6 GHz spectrum to deliver advanced WiFi performance with higher throughput and wider channels. The maximum speed of WiFi is 436 times faster. Imagine driving down the same two-lane road every day, only to find more and more traffic that doesn’t heed the speed limit – congestion. Now, imagine the same volume of cars but on a 7-lane highway with a dedicated express lane. A similar connection can be made between older vs. newer cars. Cars that were built many years ago are still sharing the highway with you, slowing down cars behind and beside it. WiFi 6E is as much about the spectrum as it is about client devices, it provides a fast lane for all your newer, faster devices.

Exceptional Experiences

WiFi 6E helps you scale your mission-critical network infrastructure to meet the needs of hybrid work, remote work, smarter workspaces and more immersive customer spaces. Your network is the connection from data to employees to customers and everywhere in between. Creating a consistent and productive work environment that keeps people connected is a priority for every business. Employees want the same experience on your network, no matter their location, and you want them to have the right access at the right time.

Enterprising Opportunities

WiFi 6E will deliver a new and improved wireless network that is faster and more reliable and designed for dense environments, high-bandwidth applications. Therefore it opens the door for businesses to implement services that require ultra-low latency like augmented and virtual reality services.

Enhanced Security

With a more diverse workforce and customer base, the need for better security is critical. The WiFi Alliance requires WPA3 security certification for all WiFi 6E devices. This provides the latest cybersecurity protocols.

Effortless Deployments

Flexibility and agility are crucial to deployment. One of our partners has released a WiFi 6E access point that delivers the flexibility to switch between multiple operation modes. Operate the access point in dual-band mode and get extra 5GHz capacity to handle today’s wireless congestion. Then, when those 6E devices come online in force, simply flip a switch and open up the 6GHz band. If you value your WiFi technology strategy and want to find out more, we can arrange for one of our specialists to discuss how improved bandwidth and low latency is critical to any business that wishes to keep up in this ever-changing environment.