What is the Difference Between Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6? Detailed Comparision

At the beginning of the new year, many friends began to "think" about installing new homes. With people's reliance on the Internet, many families have paid more attention to the construction of home networks, especially the Wi-Fi 6 technology that has been gassing in recent years. It makes many friends who want to install a new home wonder, is Wi-Fi 6 really so fragrant?

Speaking of building a home wireless network environment, the current mainstream technologies are Wi-Fi 4, Wi-Fi 5, and Wi-Fi 6.

Should home users choose Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 when installing a new home? Or choose Wi-Fi 6 technology? What is the difference between the three, and what changes in the wireless network experience can be brought to home users?

What is Wi-Fi 6

As the sixth-generation Wi-Fi technology, Wi-Fi 6 uses the 802.11ax standard.

In 2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance officially included Wi-Fi based on the 802.11ax standard in the regular army. Through the opportunity of promoting 802.11ax, the Wi-Fi specification was renamed, and the new standard 802.11ax was renamed Wi-Fi 6.

Not only has the naming convention changed, but also new icons have been adopted for Wi-Fi device network connections.

Technically, Wi-Fi 6 can support both 2.4G and 5G frequency bands, which is the true sixth-generation Wi-Fi iterative standard. Now it will also replace the 11n and 11ac products on the market.

In addition, Wi-Fi 6 also brings a full version of MU-MIMO (supports 8 terminal uplink/downlink MU-MIMO), and at the same time introduces OFDMA technology to achieve another parallel transmission capability complementary to MU-MIMO. MU-MIMO is more flexible and practical.

Compared with the previous generation  Wi-Fi 6, where are the advantages?

Compared with the previous generation Wi-Fi, the most prominent feature of Wi-Fi 6 is the substantial increase in speed.

The theoretical maximum speed of Wi-Fi 5 is 6.9Gbps, while that of Wi-Fi 6 is increased to 9.6Gbps, and the maximum speed is increased by nearly one-third.

This will greatly improve our daily internet speed. The higher the speed is most people’s first impression of Wi-Fi 6, but the advantages of Wi-Fi 6 do not stop there.

In addition to faster speed, better performance in crowded areas is another major advantage of Wi-Fi 6.

In layman's terms, it is to solve the performance bottleneck when crowded, and you can get a smoother Internet experience when multiple devices are connected. After all, multiple devices connected to Wi-Fi at the same time can easily cause network stalls.

And Wi-Fi 6 can solve this problem well. The reason is that Wi-Fi 6 uses two black technologies, OFDMA and MU-MIMO.

Wi-Fi 5's OFDM scheme is to dispatch vehicles on an order basis. Regardless of the size of the goods, one order is sent, and even a small piece of goods is sent to one car. This leads to low utilization of the carriages, low efficiency, and waste. Resources.

Wi-Fi 6 with OFMDA technology can divide the wireless channel into multiple sub-channels to form a frequency resource block. User data is carried on each resource block instead of occupying the entire channel, achieving multiple sub-channels in each time period. Users transmit in parallel at the same time.

Compared with the previous generation technology, OFMDA technology orders are aggregated, and the trucks are loaded on the road as much as possible, which greatly improves transportation efficiency.

If OFMDA technology effectively improves the transmission speed, MU-MIMO technology realizes the parallel use of multiple users. Although Wi-Fi 5 also supports MU-MIMO, the router only allows communication with 4 devices at a time, and only supports it. Downlink MU-MIMO.

The MU-MIMO technology carried by Wi-Fi 6 allows the router to communicate with up to 8 devices at the same time, and supports both uplink and downlink MU-MIMO, without the need for sequential communication;

In contrast, the improvement from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 is more like the expansion of one-way 4-lane to two-way 8-lane, and multiple devices are no longer like many vehicles waiting in line to exit from an exit. Improved communication efficiency.

Wi-Fi 6 that supports TWT (Target Wakeup Time) technology is more power-efficient, allowing AP to plan communication with the device, and negotiate when and how often it will wake up to send/receive data.

Terminals can be grouped into different TWT periods, reducing the time required to keep the antenna powered on to transmit and search for signals, which means reducing power usage, and also reducing the number of devices competing for wireless resources after waking up.

Which one to choose between 5G and Wi-Fi 6?

We have popularized Wi-Fi 6 technology and advantages for everyone. I believe everyone has a deeper understanding of Wi-Fi 6. Then as 5G, which is on par with Wi-Fi 6, who has the advantage between the two?

In fact, in our opinion, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G are not a "fish and bear's paw" problem but are limited by considerations of various factors such as time, space, and benefits.

As a technical solution to solve the "localization" of short-distance wireless transmission.

Including Wi-Fi 6, all protocols beginning with 802.11 (including 802.11ax, ac, b, g, n, etc.) do not involve any management and control of spectrum resources. The frequency band where 5G is located is a spectrum resource regulated by the government established by the 3GPP and the communication associations of various countries.

Where the two are the same, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G also use OFDMA and MU-MIMO technologies, which have increased bandwidth and access capacity by as much as 4 times compared to their previous generations.

There are many differences between the two in essence. Wi-Fi 6 is actually a wireless technology with a smaller coverage area. The transmission power and use environment of the router determines the coverage area of ​​Wi-Fi 6. Due to power and spectrum resource limitations, most routers are more suitable for covering an indoor scene.

The 5G network is a unified national communication technology planned and managed. It is generally deployed outdoors. Compared with Wi-Fi 6, it has a wider range and is less susceptible to interference. Therefore, 5G is mainly used in public network access and Internet infrastructure access.

Is the Wi-Fi 6 router really fragrant?

Do I need to update my home router now? Although Wi-Fi 6 is fragrant, users must refer to their own use environment and needs before purchasing.

The wireless standard supported by the router at home is out of date. If it is a version that supports Wi-Fi 4, we recommend that you directly upgrade your router at home to a new product that supports Wi-Fi 6 standards in one step.

After all, nowadays, newly released mobile phones and laptops and other devices Wi-Fi 6 have become standard.

From home, e-sports to large-sized routers, looking at the market of Wi-Fi 6 routers at the moment, it can be said that the market for Wi-Fi 6 routers is endless, and the prices range from several hundred to several thousand yuan. Although it is showing a trend of gradually catching up , But not overnight.

On the whole, Wi-Fi 6 router products can provide users with a smoother Internet experience, and at the same time have a good geographical complementarity with 5G. If you have the conditions, changing to a Wi-Fi 6 router at home will definitely give you a different feeling.