WiFi is shrouded in an impenetrable fog of anacronyms making it easy to get lost. This leads to it feeling too complicated and daunting a subject to fully understand which leads to systems evolving in adhoc and inefficient ways.
How your Wi-Fi network infrastructure was installed, how and when it evolved over time and whether this spanned differences in standards is likely to have introduced issues with interoperability into your network, degrading its overall performance.
Over time the underlying technology has been constantly progressing, not always mutually compatable, while the naming conventions became more and more difficult to follow, due to that fog of anacronyms, overall it can be unclear what you have, what fits and what your next steps might be to in order to achieve greater efficiency.
Generation/ IEEE Standard | Frequency | Maximum Linkrate | Year |
Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) | 2.4/5 GHz | 600–9608 Mbit/s | 2019 |
Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) | 5 GHz | 433–6933 Mbit/s | 2014 |
Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) | 2.4/5 GHz | 72–600 Mbit/s | 2009 |
Changes in the patterns of work
Post pandemic flexible use of office space, hot desking and hybrid working relies a lot more on Wi-Fi connectivity. Workers arrive with a suit of office and personal devices that need to connect to the network, drawing on resources and posing security risks as a result.
Wi-Fi 6 is a significant evolution offering impressive benefits. With a maximum theoretical data rate of almost 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) when eight spatial streams and 160 megahertz channels are used.
Wi-Fi 6 can provide the following benefits:
lower overall latency
improved connection quality
potentially better intracell roaming
faster data transfer and increased data capacity per cell
better handling of applications such as 4K or 8K video
robust WPA3 encryption algorithm and enhanced user management
higher user density per access point (AP) and for the overall WLAN system
improved power efficiency and longer client device battery life with better control of sleep modes, called target wake time
more efficient wireless operations with techniques which enable new slicing of channels to simultaneously accommodate more clients of varying capabilities
Secure efficiencies
Hot desking and modern laptops supplied without ethernet ports rely on Wi-Fi and need it to be stable while providing adequate bandwidth. Wi-Fi 6 standards are more than capable of providing this service with the potential over time of reducing the switching requirements of the underlying network saving cost and energy.
Wi-Fi 6 represents a maturing of the previously opaque wireless standards, it brings advances in capacity, coverage, performance, and security while offering greater backwards compatibility to older devices.
Security while always important becomes more of an issue with so many connected devices both professional and personal. WPA3 offers enterprise-level encryption as well as new guest standards letting the system negotiate encryption on a per device basis meaning its both more secure and more accountable.
The result of all this shows clearly that an audit of your networks Wi-Fi deployment is likely to have us identify and then smooth out any bottlenecks, enhancing the capabilities of your Wi-Fi deployment while at the same reassuring you that you have a secure and robust system you are in clear control over.
Xgeneration will be happy to visit your site to conduct a free audit of your Wi-Fi deployment giving you a measured and realistic overview of your environment and use profile with an affordable plan to take you forward. Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash
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