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Making Sense of Wi-Fi 6: More Than Just a New Naming System

The new Wi-Fi will be called Wi-Fi 6 and routers with this technology will be available from 2019. 

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The next Wi-Fi standard will be available via routers in 2019, but the bigger news is it will be called Wi-Fi 6. The Wi-Fi Alliance, which is responsible for making decisions on the connectivity and its standards, has decided to name Wi-Fi standards differently from now on.

Till date, Wi-Fi standards were denoted by 802.1.ac and few more. Soon these devices will show Wi-Fi names with numbers like Wi-Fi 5 for the current standard, which is 802.1.ac.

What you’ll see next year is 802.1.ax, which will be called Wi-Fi 6. The new names will appear on the router with symbols (given below) helping buyers understand what each router is capable of.

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This is what the new names of the standard look like. The list includes existing as well as upcoming Wi-Fi technology. The changes on routers will reflect in the coming months.

According to reports, there are 9 billion devices using Wi-Fi in the world as of 2018. 

What Will I Get?

Now that we know what it’s called, it’s time to look at what the upcoming Wi-Fi 6 connectivity standard will offer for consumers buying routers with this technology.

Mostly, you’re looking at a smart home-friendly ecosystem that’ll deliver better performance for small devices like smart lights and every other connected device.

According to Wi-Fi Alliance, people can expect the signal strength to cater to demands of multiple devices in a household, which is ideal for the Netflix-hogging generation. Now we wait for the router makers to incorporate these changes into the products and launch them in 2019.

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