What’s in a name?

How does Wi-Fi 6E fit into the Wi-Fi hierarchy?

Remember the good old days of wireless g, n, and ac? Well, they’re gone, replaced by Wi-Fi 4, 5, 6, and now 6E. Of course, much of this is mere rebranding. Under the new nomenclature, what was once rather clumsily known as 802.11g wireless networking is now known simply as Wi-Fi 3. Similarly, 802.11n becomes Wi-Fi 4, 802.11ac is renamed Wi-Fi 5, and 802.11ax is the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard.

But what of Wi-Fi 6E? In simple terms, it’s any Wi-Fi 6 device capable of operating in the 6GHz spectrum. In other words, 6E is simply 6 “extended” into the 6GHz spectrum. That definition was made official in January this year when Wi-Fi 6E was certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, the industry standards body that oversees interoperability and backwards compatibility, and also ensures that Wi-Fi 6E supports the latest WPA 3 security features.

It also means that Wi-Fi 6E adopts the full MU-MIMO capabilities of 802.11ax or Wi-Fi 6. MU-MIMO was already a part of previous Wi-Fi standards. It’s a technology that creates support for multiple device transmission on a single Wi-Fi channel, reducing the need for devices to wait for the Wi-Fi channel to which they are connected to become clear before transmitting.

Previous standards supported up to four devices transmitting in parallel. Wi-Fi 6 and by implication Wi-Fi 6E ups that to eight devices. Wi-Fi 6E’s status as an extension of Wi-Fi 6 also ensures it will be backwards compatible with existing Wi-Fi access points. However, it won’t be possible to upgrade existing Wi-Fi 6 devices to support 6E, be that through firmware or similar avenues.