New Spectrum, the 6GHz Wi-Fi Soon to Arrive | Wibest Broker

In a few months, there’s going to be a lot more Wi-Fi available for more people. The Federal Communications Commission has voted to open up a plot of spectrum in the 6GHz band for unlicensed use. It’s the same regulatory go-ahead that lets a router broadcast over the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. 

There are now a lot more open airwaves that routers can use to broadcast Wi-Fi signals. Once this is officially opened for business later this year, that should translate to faster, more reliable connections. 

This is the biggest spectrum addition since the Federal Communications Commission cleared the way for Wi-Fi in 1989. It basically quadruples the amount of space available for routers and other devices. It means a lot more bandwidth and a lot less interference for any device that can take advantage of it.

Wi-Fi Alliance is an industry-backed group that oversees the implementation of Wi-Fi. Its marketing leader Kevin Robinson said, this is the most monumental decision around Wi-Fi in 20 years.

Devices are supposed to start supporting 6GHz Wi-Fi by the end of 2020. So its implementation will be soon. When it comes, expect to see it branded under the name “Wi-Fi 6E.”

This is how Wi-Fi 6E will fix a bad wi-fi. If one ever had trouble connecting to a Wi-Fi network, chances are, spectrum congestion was the problem. 

When there are too many devices trying to connect over the same band of frequencies, some devices will drop.  A long list of nearby Wi-Fi networks may be a reason why connection gets slower and less reliable. There might just be too many competing signals for a computer to get through.

The New Spectrum 6GHz Wi-Fi  and Connection Problems

The 6 gigahertz Wi-Fi can go a long way toward solving a connection problem. It offers not just a new swath of airwaves but a spacious swath for routers to use. One that doesn’t require overlapping signals like on some current Wi-Fi channels. 

It has enough room for up to seven maximum-capacity Wi-Fi streams to all be broadcast simultaneously. It does not interfere with each other and without using any of the previously available spectrum.

The FCC is actually opening up 1,200MHz of spectrum in the 6 gigahertz band. For the past twenty years, Wi-Fi has been operating with roughly 400MHz. All available channels had to be split up within that limited amount of space. 

The channels on the 6GHz band are expected to be 160MHz each in size. Moreover, only two channels at that size could fit inside the currently available airspace.

What exactly is 6 gigahertz wi-fi? Wi-Fi works by broadcasting over airwaves that are open to be used by anyone. Today, it’s working on two bands: 2.4GHz and 5GHz and now we’re adding a third band, 6GHz.

The numbers make a difference, 2.4GHz travels farther, while 6GHz delivers data faster. What really matters is not the specific frequencies being used. It’s how large a swath of airwaves is available.

What makes 6GHz particularly exciting is this new band quadruples the total space available to traditional Wi-Fi.