Is it worth buying new equipment with Wi-Fi 6 or better to wait? - Information Technology Blog

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Saturday, November 2, 2019

Is it worth buying new equipment with Wi-Fi 6 or better to wait?


Is it worth buying new equipment with Wi-Fi 6 or better to wait?


Wi-Fi wireless networks are one of the technologies most used by all of us to connect to the Internet, over the years, this technology has evolved to become what it offers us today, which is the transmission speed of Fast and safe data. With the release of the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard, many users wonder if it is worth investing in new devices to take advantage of the benefits, or it is better to wait a little longer for them to fall in price and have more compatible devices. In this article, we give you the keys to all this.

The new Wi-Fi 6 standard is clear that it is the future since its release to the market manufacturers are turning to launch new Wi-Fi routers with Wi-Fi AX. Some of its key features are OFDMA in upload and download, MU-MIMO in upload and download, 1024QAM encoding, and other technologies to mitigate interference with neighbouring networks such as BSS Color, and even TWT to save energy on mobile devices or IoT. Many of these technologies that we have in Wi-Fi 6 come directly from the world of 4G, where we have been enjoying the improvements for some years.

Before we can think about using Wi-Fi 6, we have to be clear if our network is ready for it, and that is why it is important to consider the following requirements:

  • The wired internal network has to be prepared to absorb the greater bandwidth that Wi-Fi provides 6. If our entire wired network is currently Gigabit Ethernet, we likely have a bottleneck in the wired interface itself. It is necessary that all wiring, and network electronics, be prepared to make the jump to 2.5G or higher.
  • That the main equipment where they are going to receive or transmit data, at least have SSD or a RAID of hard disks, because it is useless to have a lot of wireless speed if later we have the bottleneck on our hard drive.

Is it worth buying equipment with Wi-Fi 6 already?

We are currently in a moment of transition, from the old Wi-Fi 5 to the new Wi-Fi 6. The main problem we will encounter with this new standard is that there are not yet many compatible devices. The main manufacturers have launched their routers, yes, some of them like ASUS allows to create Wi-Fi Mesh systems with two or more the same routers, but currently, we do not have, or we have very few models of:

  • Wi-Fi repeaters to extend the wireless signal
  • Wi-Fi PCIe or USB cards to connect to the Wi-Fi network with the new standard

As with Wi-Fi 5, it will take a few months to start seeing the entire wireless ecosystem with Wi-Fi 6. The most important thing if you have a router with Wi-Fi 6 is the wireless clients, and considering that Most of us use Wi-Fi at home with smartphones, tablets and laptops, we believe that even Wi-Fi 6 is not implemented enough to be worth the extra outlay. If we do not have a device that is compatible with Wi-Fi 6, it is useless to have a router that has that connection if we cannot take advantage of it because our device is not compatible. Currently, there are very few devices that have Wi-Fi 6, in mobile telephony, for example, only Samsung Galaxy S10 / S10 + and Samsung Galaxy Note10 / Note10 + use this new standard.

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If you need to buy a new router to replace that of your operator, or because the one you currently have has stopped working properly, it is clear that we do recommend you to buy a router with the Wi-Fi 6 standard, since in the coming months they will continue to appear Gradually new devices. However, if you bought a router a couple of years ago, and just want to renew it to see the performance of Wi-Fi 6, our recommendation is to wait a while until more devices appear.

Learn More About it: What is WiFi 6 and Is It Worth Waiting For?

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