Wi-Fi 6: India Gears Up for the Next Generation of Wi-Fi Technology By Marthesh Nagendra, Country Manager – India, ME & SAARC, NETGEAR

With much of the country being on lockdown in the past few months due to the ongoing pandemic, by now you must be aware of the importance of Internet and Wi-Fi devices. Many of us didn’t realize the significance of having a strong Wi-Fi device in our home up till now, but today in the world we live in, it is clear that Internet and Internet devices play a significant role in our day to day life and have become somewhat of necessity during these times. Before the pandemic, the country was focused and was talking about the emergence of the next big thing i.e. the 5G technology, many organization, and businesses started rolling out devices that were 5G enabled or supported the technology to make India ready for 5G but a more powerful communication started has also started gaining its name i.e. Wi-Fi 6.

Most of you would be also aware of the term Wi-Fi 6 by now, Wi-Fi 6 or 802.11ax is the latest version of the 802.11 communication standard. The latest version of this Wi-Fi standard empowers with faster Wi-Fi speeds with reliable connections, so one can enjoy buffer-free streaming, faster downloads, and add more smart home devices without slowing down the Internet experience. It also provides better coverage and, more importantly, has the power and capacity to handle dozens of devices in the typical congested smart home.

The latest communication standard has started gaining an edge in the Wi-Fi market as many companies have started rolling out devices/hardware that are Wi-Fi 6 enabled including Cisco, Asus, NETGEAR, TP-Link, etc. Besides this, many Smartphone companies have also started taking lead in the race by bringing out devices that support Wi-Fi 6. Apple, launched iPhone 11 series that support the latest Wi-Fi standard i.e. Wi-Fi 6, besides this Samsung has also introduced a few of its mobile phones in the market that also supports the latest Wi-Fi standard. Even for Gaming – the new Play Station is supposedly enabled with wifi 6 too.

In short, companies have started gearing up for the next generation of Wi-Fi standard and have started rolling out Wi-Fi 6 enabled devices or devices that support Wi-Fi 6. The latest Wi-Fi standard is set to change the course of the overall Internet experience; it is faster and much more efficient, capable of powering a growing number of devices simultaneously.

The ongoing pandemic has started the new era of working from home culture and as the pandemic prevails much of the employees and organization will continue to allow their employees to work from home. Evidently, the current Wi-Fi devices available in the market are not able to support multiple devices at once leading to network congestion, slowdown of network in the devices in respective homes, ultimately leading to a hampered productivity of the employees. Wi-Fi 6 has the ability to handle multiple devices as it uses MU-MIMO technology, Multiple User Multiple In/Multiple Out. This means it uses multiple antennas to talk to multiple channels at once, allowing the router to not only talk to multiple devices at once but also allows those devices to respond at the same time.

Wireless and home Internet providers have started providing more speed in the last few months due to the increased demand as a number of increased users are working from home, but only increasing the Internet speed won’t solve the problem, the common issue one faces is the Wi-Fi connectivity not being at optimum levels in certain parts of their home, hence, the users need a decent Wi-Fi to overcome these networking challenges and the Wi-Fi 6 devices ensure that connectivity is transmitted to various parts of the house which has low connectivity or are just basically dead zones.

And in order to reap the benefits of the investment of Wi-Fi 6, one has to have a fast Internet connection corresponding with the speed at which the standard operates, as well as the wireless devices that are compliant with the new standard.

The world of Internet is changing day by day, many technologies are introduced or upgraded every day, Wi-Fi 6 is one of the newest technologies that were introduced to meet the demands of faster connections and reduce the anxiety that comes with trying to connect to the Internet while we are all cooped up at working from home. Since the organizations have embraced the idea of working from home and many organizations have introduced work from home policies. It is safe to say that the work from home culture is here to stay for long; hence, people should invest in the latest Wi-Fi technologies to boost their productivity in the long run.