The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on April 23 to open a new wifi access route, 6 GHz. This should allow American connections to go much faster.
The quality of the wifi depends on several factors. As on a motorway, there is a maximum authorized speed: we can theoretically reach 9.6 gigabits of data per second with the sixth generation of wifi, even if almost no one achieves or needs such high performance.
This requires that the model of your car (your internet service provider) has an engine capable of climbing at this speed (your device), and that the roads are in a condition to let you reach maximum speed (the advantage fiber on ADSL, for example).
But even when they are all met, these conditions do not matter if in the end, your automobile is stuck in a traffic jam.
A spectrum story
This is where the 6 GHz frequency band comes in. This new 1,200 MHz spectrum opens a fast lane four times wider than the previous ones to let traffic through. Many more modems will be able to connect at the same time, without risking congesting bandwidth.
Until now, wifi used the frequency bands 2.4 GHz (which travels further) and 5 GHz (which travels quickly), and these only covered a spectrum of 400 MHz.
The improvement is therefore historic, underlines Kevin Robinson, the marketing director of Wi-Fi Alliance. “In twenty years of career, this is the most monumental decision in the history of the wifi spectrum”, he told The Verge.
Now remains to implement the”access to this frequency on the devices, so as to have a wifi network with capacities equivalent to those of 5G, but indoors.
Broadcom, which has been leveraging technology for two years, has already launched the world’s first wifi 6E microchip –6E is important to distinguish this new wifi from chips wifi 6 at all. Enterprises as Intel or Qualcomm also announced the upcoming release of chips capable of connecting to the 6 GHz band.
Specialists believe that smartphones will be the first to benefit of these chips, d”here the end of l”2020. Computers are expected to follow in 2021, and televisions in 2022.
In Europe, the use of the 6 GHz frequency band is not authorized for the moment. But the European Union is looking into the subject and could make the decision to open it soon – the path being already traced, it will undoubtedly have no choice.
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