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Wi-Fi Alliance rebrands 802.11ac as Wi-Fi 5, picks 802.11ax as Wi-Fi 6
The Wi-Fi Alliance today announced a significant rebranding of the "802.11" Wi-Fi standards that have long served as a source of potential confusion for users: Going forward, the current 802.11ac standard will be known as Wi-Fi 5, while its successor 802.11ax will be known as Wi-Fi 6, establishing a generational terminology that — like Bluetooth 3, 4, and 5 — will be easier for customers to remember and understand.
[...] Today's announcement is significant not just because of its impact on currently popular Wi-Fi standards, but also on one that's been on the fringe: 802.11ad. Also known as WiGig, 802.11ad notably depends on an extra, 60GHz millimeter wave wireless antenna to boost speeds of compatible devices in the same room as the router. A handful of routers and devices, including wireless VR adapters, have adopted 802.11ad over the past year or two.
But the announcement makes clear that the Wi-Fi Alliance sees 802.11ax, not 802.11ad, as the next stage of Wi-Fi's evolution. 802.11ax has no need for the extra antenna, instead making more efficient use of the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands already used by 802.11ac — err, Wi-Fi 5. Wi-Fi 6 promises up to 11 Gbps speeds across three or more devices, with a single Wi-Fi 6 device achieving up to 5 Gbps.
In a statement to VentureBeat, the Alliance explained how Wi-Fi 6 and WiGig will coexist:
"Wi-Fi 6 and WiGig, based on 802.11ad and eventually 802.11ay, will continue to evolve in parallel and remain strong complements to one another within the Wi-Fi portfolio of technologies. We fully expect some products to integrate Wi-Fi 6 and WiGig, which will remain a distinct brand to indicate products that support 60 GHz Wi-Fi for multi-gigabit, low-latency connectivity."
Also at Ars Technica, The Verge, and Tom's Hardware.
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(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:37AM (2 children)
I remain puzzled as to what it is about 802.11xx that has anything to do with Fidelity.
TCP is lossless but TCP audio streams can stutter if packet retransmission is required. UDP doesn't require retransmission but the audio is sometimes corrupted.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by coolgopher on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:35AM (1 child)
The "Fi" isn't for "fidelity", it's for "fiddling", as in "wireless fiddling". Anyone with WiFi experience can tell you it takes a bunch of fiddling with settings to make it work well in any given location and with any given set of devices.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:49AM
I can see that you tried for humour here, but this cuts too close to the truth.
It's just the sad reality of hardware IT.