Wi-Fi Alliance has presented Wi-Fi 6 Release 2 at CES 2022.

An appropriate environment considering that the vast majority of the equipment presented had support for the standard.

The update builds on the foundation laid by the original version of Wi-Fi 6 by adding new features, which developers can choose to use.

New features They are compatible with all Wi-Fi bands, 2,4, 5 and the 6 GHz band including Wi-Fi 6E.

Modernization is said to address traffic load.

Traffic load has been steadily increasing over the past few years in home and business Internet usage.

«We are seeing a significant shift in uplink traffic versus downlink traffic," Wi-Fi Alliance technicians explain.

«A few years ago, I was seeing ratios in the 10:1 range, meaning you were downloading 10 bits of data for every bit you were uploading or sending over your broadband connection.

One major supplier has already indicated that the ratio has changed to about 6:1 and they hope that ultimately, let's get to a ratio of 2:1«.

Wi-Fi 6 Release 2 aims to:

Meeting that growing demand for uplink load is MU-MIMO, which essentially allows network devices to load data at the same time on different streams within their network.

It's a natural extension of the MU-MIMO downlink that's already part of Wi-Fi 6 and should help the next generation of Wi-Fi devices adapt to the Increased network traffic caused by the pandemic, especially when people continue to work, study and consume content online.

The modernization of the standard adds features such as:

The activation time of the transmission target,

Extended suspension time and

Energy reduction in multi-user dynamic spatial multiplexing.

All of which are designed to help battery-powered Wi-Fi devices conserve power while connecting to an entry point.

These are very technical concepts that developers can use, but it is hoped that it will help developers.improve battery life in smart home sensors, cameras or other such wireless devices that have grown enormously in recent years. 

The main improvements of Wi-Fi 6

Of course, the improvements over Wi-Fi 5 are compelling, such as the Quadrupled performance up to 10 Gb/s, greater reliability, low energy consumption and others such as:

• Greater global bandwidth per user for streaming ultra-high definition and virtual reality content.
• Greater capacity of routers to handle connected devices.
• Support for more simultaneous data streams and at higher speeds.
• The spectrum is divided into more channels to allow for more communication paths (80 or 160 MHz versus a maximum of 40 MHz in the 5 GHz band).
• Packets contain more data and networks can handle different data streams at once.
• Improved performance (up to 4x) over the wider range of an entry point.
• Better performance/robustness in outdoor and multi-path (cluttered) environments
• Ability to offload wireless traffic from cellular networks where reception is poor.
• 256-QAM modulation versus 64-QAM of the previous ones.
• Multi-User MIMO (MU-MIMO) that allows four downlink connections.
• Better energy efficiency, which should translate into increased battery life for devices.
• More total spectrum: 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands. The 1 GHz band could be added in the future.