than previous generations of Wi-Fi. The reason is that
these new lanes on the proverbial highway can only
be used by Wi-Fi 6E devices, which will be the latest
and fastest devices available.
An analogy to illustrate this scenario involves the
highways in India. Today, on these highways, it is not
unusual for drivers to encounter any number of obstacles,
including the usual debilitating density of other drivers,
foot traffic, bicycles, and narrow lanes. Much like today’s
5 GHz Wi-Fi bands, these highways are already full, and
some, like the 2.4 GHz band, are overflowing.
Additional challenges include dynamic frequency
selection (DFS) and false detection issues on 5 GHz. These
challenges can be thought of as the highway equivalent
of drivers assuming that road construction crews will
close off a lane, preemptively overburdening other lanes
to avoid it, only to realize later that there was no road
construction in the first place. This scenario gives a sense
of how busy, fragile and overtaxed the current Wi-Fi
situation really is.
With Wi-Fi 6E, it is similar to adding brand new
lanes, but it is much more like adding a completely separate
parallel highway where the road surface is smooth,
the lanes are wide, and the only things allowed are the
fastest, most efficient, and intelligent cars that do not get
in the way of one another. Greater spaces between cars
afford a greater margin of safety or reliability, and the
wider lanes make room for larger vehicles to carry more
things and deliver them more efficiently.
It is a completely different world that allows Wi-Fi
to be used in a way it has never been used before.
The FCC approved 1,200 MHz of unlicensed spectrum in the 6 GHz band.
Europe and the UK are expected to release 500 MHz in 2021.
October/November/December 2020 I 9
UNLICENSED 6 GHZ SPECTRUM
In April 2020, the FCC released a 1.2 GHz plot of unlicensed
spectrum—from 5.925 GHz to 7.125 GHz—to serve
as the basis for new wireless communications.
This spectrum is significant for a number of reasons:
• It is the first addition to consumer wireless
frequencies in 20 years.
• It triples the amount of spectrum available
for Wi-Fi, adding 1.2 GHz to the previous
~600 MHz of available spectrum.
• Because it is unlicensed, its use is not restricted
to a single company or geography in the way that
5G is, for example. As a result, it is open to multiple
uses by various users throughout the country.
Furthermore, this additional spectrum would represent
the effective doubling of lanes on the wireless highways.
THE Wi-Fi 6E STANDARD
How does Wi-Fi 6E benefit from 6 GHz unlicensed spectrum?
In short, it makes things, especially devices, much
faster. The “E” in Wi-Fi 6E refers to “extended” spectrum
and includes operation in the new 6 GHz band. This
is not to be confused with current Wi-Fi 6 technology,
which simply denotes the sixth generation of the Wi-Fi
standard and operates over the usual 2.4 GHz and
5 GHz bands (Figure 2).
As the only Wi-Fi standard to use the new 6 GHz
band, Wi-Fi 6E is in a unique position to deliver faster
speeds, lower latency, and higher overall performance
5 GHz
20/40/80/160 MHz
2.4 GHz
20/40 MHz
Wi-Fi 6E
6 GHz
5.925-7.172 GHz ~1 GHz
20/40/80/160 MHz
Freq.
FIGURE 2: Wi-Fi 6E approvals. (Image: ©2020 CommScope. All rights reserved.)