{"id":349768,"date":"2020-04-28T17:36:53","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T15:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=349768"},"modified":"2020-04-28T17:40:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-28T15:40:49","slug":"6ghz-wi-fi-has-arrived","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wireless\/349768-6ghz-wi-fi-has-arrived.html","title":{"rendered":"6GHz Wi-Fi has arrived"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week voted<\/strong><\/a> to open up additional spectrum in the 6GHz band for unlicensed use by Wi-Fi networks in the US.<\/p>\n

The decision means that more than 1,200MHz of spectrum will be available for use on upcoming Wi-Fi 6E standard devices.<\/p>\n

The standard was specifically designated to describe Wi-Fi 6 or 802.11ax devices that are capable of connecting via the 6GHz frequency band.<\/p>\n

This was the first time in 17 years that additional spectrum was allocated for Wi-Fi connectivity.<\/p>\n

Shortfall of spectrum<\/h3>\n

Wi-Fi networks carry large amounts of mobile data traffic, despite only having 600MHZ of total spectrum to operate within in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands.<\/p>\n

This will not be enough in the coming years, however, as these networks have to support an increase in Internet-enabled devices, including IoT gadgets such as smart wearables and smart home appliances.<\/p>\n

Cisco has projected that nearly 60% of global mobile data traffic will be carried by Wi-Fi connections by the year 2022.<\/p>\n

A study commissioned by the Wi-Fi Alliance predicted an 800MHz shortfall this year, which could climb to 1.12GHz by 2025.<\/p>\n

The benefits of 6GHz<\/h3>\n

Aside from being required to support the growth in Wi-Fi enabled devices, the 6GHz band offers multiple advantages over 5GHz.<\/p>\n

This includes increased bandwidth, faster speeds, and lower latency.<\/p>\n

According to Cisco, the 6GHz range has over twice the bandwidth of the 5GHz range, primarily because it is capable of carrying up to seven 160MHz channels.<\/p>\n

“6GHz addresses Wi-Fi spectrum shortage by providing contiguous spectrum blocks to accommodate 14 additional 80MHz channels and seven additional 160MHz channels which are needed for high-bandwidth applications,” the Wi-Fi Alliance explained.<\/p>\n

In trials<\/strong><\/a> recently conducted by Broadcom, it was shown that Wi-Fi devices capable of operating in the 6GHz band could reach data throughput speeds of 2Gbps while maintaining a consistent latency of 2ms.<\/p>\n

The reduced latency is because there were no legacy devices on the 6GHz band that could slow transfer rates down.<\/p>\n

Because of the higher frequency, however, the range is reduced.<\/p>\n

When to expect availability<\/h3>\n

Vice President of Marketing for Broadcom Wireless Communications and Connectivity Vijay Nagarajan said that the first Wi-Fi 6E devices are expected to be launched later in 2020.<\/p>\n

“We’re expecting the first set of devices to come to market in the second half of this year,” Nagarajan said.<\/p>\n

“You’ll see a whole slew of devices, both on the infrastructure side and on the client-side, and much more in a much more accelerated manner in 2021,” Nagarajan stated.<\/p>\n

As these devices gain widespread adoption, more Wi-Fi users could expect to see the 6GHz band being opened for use in other regions.<\/p>\n

Now read: New spectrum \u2013 What you can expect from Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, and Rain<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last week voted to open up additional spectrum in the 6GHz band for unlicensed use by Wi-Fi networks in the US.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":106705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[63959,35346,749],"class_list":["post-349768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wireless","tag-6ghz-wi-fi","tag-federal-communications-commission-fcc","tag-wi-fi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349768"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349768"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349778,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349768\/revisions\/349778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}