WiFi 6 Gains Certification, Inches Closer to Mass Adoption

The next evolution of WiFi, 802.11ax, is now available for certification the global industry consortium Wi-Fi Alliance announced today. The technology, which is being marketed as “WiFi 6,” claims to substantially improve network performance for a more diverse set of devices and specialized requirements. Similar to the benefits trumpeted by 5G vendors, WiFi 6 will deliver higher speeds, lower latency, greater power efficiency, heightened capacity, and an enhanced coverage footprint, according to the group. It also boasted that WiFi carries more than half of all global internet traffic today. WiFi Certified 6 products will deliver “nearly four times the capacity of WiFi 5” and increase operators’ ability to offload traffic to devices based on their environment and requirements, including low power, low latency, industrial IoT scenarios, and demanding enterprise applications, according to the group. Formalizing a Well-Defined Standard “Companies have been in the loop as to how this certification program has been taking shape and the timing of when WiFi 6 certification would be ready. The market has gotten started already — chips have been made and are shipping in products already,” Philip Solis, research director in charge of connectivity and smartphone semiconductors at IDC, wrote in an email response to questions.