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posted by martyb on Tuesday January 07 2020, @12:26PM   Printer-friendly

Wi-Fi Alliance Announces Wi-Fi 6E Moniker for 802.11ax in the 6 GHz Spectrum

The FCC has been considering the opening up of the 6 GHz band (essentially, the 1.2 GHz unlicensed spectrum span just above the currently used 5 GHz band) for unlicensed operation. Wideband unlicensed channels of 160 MHz and more may become essential to achieve expected performance from 802.11ax, 802.11be, 4G LTE, and 5G NR in unlicensed spectrum. Opening up a continuous 1200 MHz chunk will enable substantial amount of new bandwidth over multiple wide bandwidth channels.

Unfortunately, even though there are no currently unlicensed users of the 6 GHz band, certain fixed wireless point-to-point long-range deployments are licensed to utilize it. Wi-Fi platform vendors such as Qualcomm and Broadcom have been confident of working with those users to prevent any interference. Their key message to the licensed incumbents is that any Wi-Fi deployment in the 6 GHz band would use LPI (low-power indoor) operation and can also implement AFC (automated frequency coordination). LPI operation, for example, may impose restrictions on the total EIRP (effective isotropically radiated power) and PSD (power spectral density) for Wi-Fi devices. This will prevent interference due to low power levels and substantial building losses. In addition, most licensed users of the spectrum have their point-to-point endpoints well above the ground (mounted atop towers and buildings), and devices rated for LPI operation are not likely to affect them. AFC involves the maintenance of a database where licensed users are tracked based on their deployment location, and any unlicensed Wi-Fi usage in that spectrum capable of interfering with the licensed users could automatically shift to a different channel.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is introducing a new terminology to distinguish upcoming Wi-Fi 6 devices that are capable of 6 GHz operation - Wi-Fi 6E. This is essentially the benefits of Wi-Fi 6 / 802.11ax (higher performance in terms of faster data rates as well as lower latency) in the 6 GHz band. Wi-Fi 6E devices are expected to make it to the market relatively quickly after regulatory approval, as it only requires changing the antenna tuning / RF front end on existing devices.

802.11be is likely to become Wi-Fi 7 and also operate in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands.

In retrospect, the new Wi-Fi naming scheme is not that bad. Or at least, it's not as bad as USB yet.

Previously: Wi-Fi Alliance Rebrands Wi-Fi Standards

Related: Netgear Introduces its First Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Routers
Intel Launches a Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Wireless Network Adapter


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:56PM (6 children)

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday January 07 2020, @01:56PM (#940626) Journal

    This will prevent interference due to low power levels and substantial building losses.

    Perhaps. However, the FCC has been, and continues to be, incredibly bad at addressing actual instances of interference. I have test equipment (and radio gear) that is very capable WRT assessing interference from near DC to up past 6 GHz; there's a shitload of it. Most of it comes from devices that either aren't FCC-certified, or claim they are, but clearly couldn't survive a proper evaluation in a "calibrated cow pasture", which is what my favorite FCC test engineer humorously calls his low-interference test location.

    I have reported many devices that fail to comply; they're still for sale everywhere I look, and new ones are flowing through inventory on Amazon, etc.

    As a radio guy, its pretty damned annoying.

    The noise floor — the general level of RF noise — has been rising steadily since the 1970's, and the FCC simply isn't up to dealing with it. In this regard, they are the classic paper tiger. Undermanned and underfunded.

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  • (Score: 2) by epitaxial on Tuesday January 07 2020, @02:31PM

    by epitaxial (3165) on Tuesday January 07 2020, @02:31PM (#940636)

    The lack of FCC giving a shit made me want to start a pirate radio station. The last person I recall getting busted was running an FM station from a storage locker for two months straight before they showed up. It's been a while but listening to the CB band with an RTL-SDR was good fun. Some guy was playing clips from people yelling in horror movies. Another guy claimed to be in the next state and his signal was far stronger than any of the locals. Must have had a kilowatt or so.

  • (Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:52PM (4 children)

    by ledow (5567) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @01:52PM (#941037) Homepage

    To be honest, you really have to expect a future where there are no quiet frequencies at all.

    It's not unimaginable that, to squeeze everything out, apart from a few specialised and strictly enforced frequencies (e.g. military), everything else will become a free-for-all with something akin to DFS and the associated checking/listening and then they'll all spread themselves over every frequency available and hop to quite points and have to cope with interference from each other.

    AM radio is already pretty much dead. Analogue TV bands have been given up. Everything's getting replaced with digital channels, frequency-hopping, etc.

    Ham radio nuts will go mad, of course, but they are a relatively powerless minority with a niche usage that is basically obsolete even for their purposes. All the CB bands near me are full of digital chatter, not analogue transmission.

    Treat the airwaves like a giant collection of sliced channels, spread all your data over all available channels, join it all back together at the IP layer, layer whatever else you need on top of that (e.g. audio, video, IP, etc.).

    It's honestly the only way things will ever function in the future, especially when it comes down to "do people want IoT or do they want an old AM radio station", etc.

    I accepted that inevitability over all kinds of other media - everything IP-based tends to be superior to broadcast, telephony, etc. - many years ago. Capacity, security, multi-purpose, standardisation, resiliency, there isn't much that doesn't gain.

    • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 08 2020, @05:37PM (3 children)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @05:37PM (#941123) Journal

      AM radio is already pretty much dead.

      Nonsense.

      --
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      If you throw it hard enough.

      • (Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday January 08 2020, @07:23PM (2 children)

        by ledow (5567) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @07:23PM (#941168) Homepage

        You're kidding right? I can only be bothered to look for things I can find stats on for the UK, but 50% of all radio broadcast listening in the UK is via DAB. FM is the vast, vast majority of what remains. And it's a tiny market now. Hell, more people listen to radio through tuning their TV to a digital radio channel than AM.

        "In general, an AM transmission needs to be about 20 times stronger than an interfering signal to avoid a reduction in quality, in contrast to FM signals, where the "capture effect" means that the dominant signal needs to only be about twice as strong as the interfering one"

        I can probably tune... 2, maybe 3 AM stations near London. And about 20-25 FM stations. And hundreds of online/DAB/DVB stations. And all the AM ones have the same broadcasts on the other services.

        The very first thing to go when we need those extra frequencies is analog AM broadcasting. And that's the mass-media, everyone-in-their-cars, stuff that comes for free with cheap phones, children's toys and car stereos. Any other usage of the AM frequencies is positively dead by comparison.

        • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:52PM

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday January 08 2020, @08:52PM (#941192) Journal

          You're kidding right?

          Definitely not. [fyngyrz.com] That's just a portion of the AM broadcast (medium wave) band here; you can see there's a station that is receivable on every channel (though that's only part of the medium wave band here... this is also true right across the band), and furthermore, if I use phase discrimination like this [youtube.com], there's more than one station per channel that I can pull out and enjoy.

          I can only be bothered to look for things I can find stats on for the UK

          That is why you failed to assess the actual situation correctly.

          The very first thing to go when we need those extra frequencies is analog AM broadcasting.

          Except, also no. First, because the AM band has entirely different propagation characteristics than VHF signals do. That makes it entirely impractical for many classes of use during a large portion of the day (and which make it great for listening during those same periods, because you can hear many non-local stations.) Second, because at these wavelengths, the transmitting antennas are relatively large.

          Also, somewhat related, because of the propagation characteristics at medium wavelengths, digital broadcasting in these bands doesn't work even close to as well as analog does. There's way too much selective fading, phase shift, and multipath. Digital broadcasting in the medium wave bands has been tried and has been a rousing failure. So the only practical candidates for these wavelengths are analog signals, which in turn pretty much rule out a lot of the use cases where governments and corporations are inclined to be acquisitive. Medium wave is great for voice, pretty good for low-to-moderate-fi music, and downright terrible for data of any kind.

          The vast majority of frequency acquisition and expansion is at VHF and above. Much of it well above VHF, in fact. The AM (and shortwave, for that matter) broadcast, utility and ham bands are at comparably little risk of encroachment or replacement for the above reasons.

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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:22PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 08 2020, @09:22PM (#941200)

          Here where I am in the U.S., AM stations outnumber FM ones. But even in major metropolises, there are quite a number of AM stations, about one for every two FM stations, according to my sampling of major cities. Given the extra range of AM stations and the lower population density in many parts of the U.S., AM stations make sense. And that also doesn't factor in the large amounts of commuting/driving Americans do, which is prime radio-listening audience.