Tired of hearing about Wi-Fi 6? Great, let’s talk about Wi-Fi 6E

Enlarge / Expect to see an "e" tacked onto this logo somewhere in the near future, as an additional 1200MHz of spectrum becomes available to Wi-Fi 6 in the USA. (credit: Wi-Fi Alliance)

On Friday, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced a new branding for the expansion of Wi-Fi into an additional 1200MHz of unlicensed spectrum.

Dubbed "Wi-Fi 6E," the new spectrum should be made available for general Wi-Fi device use shortly; the US Federal Communications Commission proposed expansion of Wi-Fi into 6GHz spectrum in October 2018, and FCC chairman and novelty-coffee-mug aficionado Ajit Pai expressed a desire for the agency to "move quickly" (no concrete decision timeline was given) in opening up the spectrum to Wi-Fi at the Americas Spectrum Management Conference in September 2019.

What is Wi-Fi 6E?

Wi-Fi 6E is the Wi-Fi alliance's branding for accessing the proposed new 6GHz spectrum using the existing Wi-Fi 6 protocol, otherwise known as 802.11ax. The new spectrum is right next door to the 5GHz unlicensed spectrum we've all been using since 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4). That means its RF characteristics are close enough to what we're already accustomed to to require no further explanation: it'll act just like 5GHz networking already does, for the most part.

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