Wi-Fi 6E, a new Wi-Fi standard that has raised the maximum transmission speed per second to 2Gbps, is expected to be in full use from this year.
While major semiconductor manufacturers are releasing Wi-Fi 6E-supporting chipsets, governments that have jurisdiction over the use of radio waves, such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the domestic Ministry of Science and Technology, have also applied for permission to use the 6GHz frequency, which is the basis of Wi-Fi 6E.
Accordingly, the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry standardization organization, also started operating the Wi-Fi 6E certification program from the new year. Market research firm IDC also predicted that more than 300 million Wi-Fi 6E-equipped devices will be released this year.
■ Aim to improve the actual speed of 2Gbps or more
Wi-Fi 6E is an extension of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), the latest Wi-Fi standard. The frequency band has been expanded to 6GHz while taking advantage of Wi-Fi 6, such as improving the maximum transmission speed, minimizing power consumption, and enhancing encryption technology.
Currently, many devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops use the 5GHz band for Wi-Fi access. The problem is that while the wired Internet environment is improving to 2.5G beyond 1Gbps, it is not catching up with Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi 6E moves the frequency band to 6GHz and uses 14 channels with 80MHz bandwidth and 7 channels with 160MHz. Through this, it has secured an actual speed of 2Gbps or more.
■ Governments of each country, successively approved 6GHz Wi-Fi
After the Wi-Fi Alliance released the Wi-Fi 6E standard last year, the semiconductor industry such as Broadcom and ON Semiconductor has released products that can handle this one after another. However, the biggest obstacle to the spread of Wi-Fi 6E was the frequency in the 6GHz band.
The 2.4GHz/5GHz band used by the current Wi-Fi standard is internationally referred to as the’ISM band’. This frequency can be used freely by industrial, medical, and scientific equipment and devices without a separate permission, but few countries have opened up to 6GHz to Wi-Fi.
However, after the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened the 6GHz band for Wi-Fi 6E in April of last year, the Ministry of Science and ICT also decided to supply a frequency of up to 1.2GHz for Wi-Fi 6E in October. Similar measures are underway in Canada, Taiwan, Japan and Brazil.
■ Full-scale operation of the certification program from the new year
The Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry standardization organization, began operating the Wi-Fi 6E certification program from the new year. This is because it has all the necessary conditions, such as the frequency that can be used, following hardware such as Wi-Fi 6E chipset and devices.
Among devices that have passed Wi-Fi 6E certification, data can be exchanged using all three frequency bands: 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz, and WPA3, the current most powerful encryption standard, is installed by default.
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Wi-Fi 6E, which jumped to Qualcomm, launched products from the end of the year
Major semiconductor companies such as Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Intel are also putting Wi-Fi 6E-enabled products into the market one after another. If you have a wired/wireless router or access point that supports Wi-Fi 6E, and a device that supports it, you can use Wi-Fi 6E right away in Korea.
Market research firm IDC predicted that “Over 338 million devices that support Wi-Fi 6E will be released this year, and TV and VR devices will also support Wi-Fi 6E in the first quarter, following smartphones and laptops.” .