WIFI 6 – – the new standard for wireless networks, with even more bandwidth and security

Advantages over 802.11ac

• Minimize wireless connection failures
• 3x speed increase
• Ability to transfer significantly more data
• Reducing battery consumption by improving energy efficiency
• Improvements for 2.4 GHz band
• Integration with 5G networks

Since the standard is still being certified, the market has not yet presented hardware for Wi-Fi 6. However, many large manufacturers of network equipment, including EZELINK, have already presented a new generation of access points based on the latest standard, which will soon appear in the Sales. Ideal for large branch offices with a large number of employees, where it is necessary to process a huge amount of data from dozens or hundreds of workplaces every day.

The first wireless networks of the 802.11 standard could provide only 11 Mbps, and even then these 11 megabits were shared among all devices in the network segment. The 802.11g standard raised this figure to 54 Mbps, at the same time the first timid attempts to look beyond the 100 Mbps mark began, however, which did not lead to the emergence of a single standard. Meanwhile, the popularity of Wi-Fi grew and the 2.4 GHz band gradually became narrow, so in 2009, with the advent of the 802.11n standard, an attempt was made to fully master the 5 GHz band, but only in 2013 with the ratification of 802.11ac this frequency segment began to be used en masse. This generation of Wi-Fi is commonly referred to as the fifth generation.

The fifth generation was able to achieve and even surpass the performance of wired gigabit Ethernet, but to provide really high speeds required the use of transceiver-antenna formulas from 4 × 4 and the principles of MU-MIMO. And only the sixth generation of Wi-Fi has become what could be called a truly effective wireless network: even at CES 2018, prototypes of 802.11ax devices capable of developing up to 11 Gbps were demonstrated. This is reflected even in terms: Wi-Fi 6E and HEW (High-Efficiency Wireless), in both cases, the letter E means “efficiency”.

The final version of the IEEE 802.11ax specifications was presented last year and approved in September this year. Nevertheless, despite unification and standardization, the leading manufacturers of wireless equipment have their own vision of Wi-Fi 6. EZELINK stands out as company is well aware that the IT world has changed a lot since the introduction of 802.11ac, and old technologies are poorly suited to implement a number of scenarios, such as the active use of augmented reality, modern video surveillance systems with high-definition cameras, or the organization of large networks in trade and industry.

In addition, EZELINK actively takes into account the fact that many companies, applications and services have migrated or are migrating to the clouds today, and reliable and stable communication is essential for high-quality work with cloud systems. Therefore, in its Wi-Fi 6 devices and systems, EZELINK implements the principle of “100 Mbps to everyone” – of course, this is not yet 1 Gbps, as in wired GbE, but there are more and more clients in modern networks, and not even all of they generally have the ability to wired connections, for example, various IoT devices, such as “smart price tags” in large supermarkets.

The company follows the standard quite creatively: so, realizing that the 5 GHz band will soon become very tight, in its implementation of Wi-Fi 6+ EZELINK proposes the use of a new, additional 6 GHz band, which has not yet been mastered en masse by anyone. This will not affect the performance of devices in the 5 GHz range in any way, since a separate, new radio module with its own antennas optimized for this range will be used for 6 GHz.

But even the old features implemented in previous standards may function differently in Wi-Fi 6. So, even channels with a width of 20 MHz can be cut into subcarriers in steps of up to 2 MHz, which means that several stations can broadcast in the allotted time slot, which in general will increase the efficiency of the network and reduce delays.

The new access points have 16 receiving antennas, the points themselves are optimized taking into account the experience gained during the modernization of WiMAX and 5G networks. In addition, the antennas at these points are new, made using the proprietary Smart Antenna technology, due to which they are more resistant to signal interference. Supports up to 12 spatial streams, which is 1.5 times higher than solutions from other manufacturers, and the number of spatial streams with a width of 160 MHz can reach eight. The tests carried out have shown that EZELINK is ahead of devices from other manufacturers in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

It is also worth mentioning the IoT expansion function – in the new access points there will be two slots in which you can install expansion modules, for example, with ZigBee support or even specialized ones developed in cooperation with any client in need of a certain IoT service. For example, it could be an RFID module for dealing with the increasingly popular “smart” price tags in large retail supermarkets. Also, in some models, one more expansion module can be connected using a USB port.

One cannot ignore the fact that all of EZELINK’s new Wi-Fi 6 access points use Software Defined Radio (SDR). This automatically provides them with increased flexibility – depending on the future scenario of operation, the administrator of the future network can fine-tune any of the three available radio modules or all three if necessary. For example, two modules can work as client modules, and the third one can act as a scanner of the radio environment, monitoring its state and transmitting the corresponding telemetry to the cloud control center. Or, if this particular point has few clients, but they are demanding, you can configure the link aggregation so that each client is allocated a wider bandwidth, for example, 80 instead of 20 MHz.

EZELINK’s implementation of MU-MIMO in new access points is smart: it simultaneously tries to maximize the entire antenna complex, but at the same time use it smartly – the priority will be more powerful and more bandwidth-intensive devices, for example, industrial or laboratory AR- systems with their heavy traffic volumes. Physically, EZELINK’s new access points can operate at a speed of 10 Gb/sec, in fact, with an efficiency of about 80%, this means approximately 8 Gb/sec, the results of testing a message showed 8.37 Gb/sec; Of course, this does not mean that each client will receive the same amount, but he will receive his guaranteed 100 Mbit/sec.

EZELINK sees Wi-Fi 6 not just as a replacement for Wi-Fi 5, but as a foundation for the functioning of business processes. Naturally, the “foundation” status imposes special requirements, including increased reliability and unified controls. The usual response to network problems and their subsequent “manual” resolution is not enough – you need proactive controls to prevent the very occurrence of problems that could affect the workflow. This requires modern technologies, including predictive analytics and machine learning tools, and EZELINK has such technologies, moreover, integrated into a single complex.