Wi-Fi 6E Standard Announced by Wi-Fi Alliance, Meant to Improve on Wi-Fi 6 Using 6GHz Spectrum

Wi-Fi Alliance has announced a new 6GHz spectrum called Wi-Fi 6E, meant to overcome the hurdles Wi-Fi 6 faces. In addition to the features and capabilities of Wi-Fi 6, the newer Wi-Fi 6E also promises to offer higher performance, lower latency, and faster data rates – extended into the 6GHz band. Moreover, we'll get to see Wi-Fi 6E supported devices soon become available once the regulatory approvals are sanctioned. Wi-Fi 6E will utilize 6GHz to deliver much anticipated augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) use cases for consumer, enterprise, and industrial environments.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, 6 GHz is well suited to facilitate Wi-Fi's continued growth in these areas due to its adjacency to 5 GHz where Wi-Fi already operates, greater availability of wider channel sizes, and accessibility to clear spectrum with less interference from legacy Wi-Fi 4 or Wi-Fi 5 devices.

Now once the Wi-Fi 6E is cleared by regulatory authorities, we can see it get adopted in many different areas. Analysts have predicted that the first Wi-Fi devices to use the band will include Wi-Fi 6E consumer access points and smartphones, followed by enterprise-grade access points. Moreover, Industrial environments are also expected to see strong adoption from Wi-Fi 6E to deliver applications including machine analytics, remote maintenance, or virtual employee training.

In perspective, Wi-Fi 6E devices will leverage wider channels and additional capacity to deliver greater network performance and support more Wi-Fi users at once, even in very dense and congested environments. Wi-Fi Alliance is working on the development of interoperability testing for Wi-Fi 6E that will deliver benefits to Wi-Fi users once the spectrum is available.