What Is Wi-Fi 6? New Wi-Fi Names Explained

 

The Wi-Fi Alliance is renaming its Wi-Fi versions. Here's why 802.11n, ac, and ax are becoming Wi-Fi 4, 5, and 6 and what you'll see on routers and devices going forward.

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By Sascha Segan October 4, 2018 5:37PM EST

Wi-Fi has always had a bit of a branding problem. The ubiquitous wireless networking standard is set by the IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and uses the engineers' arcane numbering system.

The original Wi-Fi standard was numbered 802.11, with speedier extensions getting letters at the end: 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n. Eventually, with more amendments to 802.11 than letters, the engineers started wrapping around: 802.11ad isn't the fourth addition to 802.11a, but an amendment of its own.

In any case, that's always been confusing (is ac faster than n?) so finally, the Wi-Fi Alliancethe industry group that handles Wi-Fi certification and branding—has rebranded the speeds for consumers.

We're now swapping letters for version numbers. There is no Wi-Fi 1, 2, or 3, formally, but there are places for those versions in Wi-Fi's history. Here's how the six current consumer standards will get renamed.

Old Name	New Name	Introduced	Max. Speed	Bands
802.11b	"Wi-Fi 1" (unofficial)	1999	11Mbps	2.4GHz
802.11a	"Wi-Fi 2" (unofficial)	1999	54Mbps	5GHz
802.11g	"Wi-Fi 3" (unofficial)	2003	54Mbps	2.4GHz
802.11n	Wi-Fi 4	2009	600Mbps	2.4GHz and 5GHz
802.11ac	Wi-Fi 5	2013	3.46Gbps	5GHz
802.11ax	Wi-Fi 6	2018/2019	10.53Gbps	2.4GHz and 5GHz

You're likely to see these new names taking hold in 2019 and really becoming widespread in 2020. You'll see the new numbering on routers, laptops, and other Wi-Fi devices going forward.

The Wi-Fi Alliance will try to get device makers to push people toward newer Wi-Fi devices by having user interface icons show the Wi-Fi level a device is connected to. So, if you get a Wi-Fi 6 router but all your devices are on Wi-Fi 4, you'll see an icon that clearly shows you need to upgrade your devices to get better speeds.

Why do you want Wi-Fi 6, anyway? I wrote an explainer on what was once 802.11ax back in 2017. The details are still correct, except for the launch dates, which were too optimistic. In short, 802.11ax really improves performance in crowded Wi-Fi areas, where there are a lot of different networks or a lot of people on your network.

802.11ax access points started becoming available this summer, ahead of official certification, which is coming in 2019. There are no 802.11ax clients yet, but expect many 2019 mobile phones to support the standard.

Wi-Fi Alphabet Soup

The well-known forms of Wi-Fi aren't the only versions of the 802.11 standard. The IEEE has had working groups on 802.11 back to the 1990s, and it's currently working on amendments to the Wi-Fi standard that wouldn't take effect before 2022. You can see all these amendments on the IEEE's official timeline. But here's a quick rundown of what each one does and when it was approved.

802.11 ...	What does it do?	Publish Date
a	Old Wi-Fi standard for high-speed 5GHz networks.	1999
b	The oldest consumer Wi-Fi standard.	1999
c	A standard that explains how wireless bridges work.	1997
d	Helps Wi-Fi comply with different countries' spectrum regulations.	2001
e	A quality-of-service system, needed for Skype and such.	2005
f	A way for access points to talk to each other.	2003
g	Consumer Wi-Fi that was as fast as 802.11a.	2003
h	An amendment to prevent Wi-Fi devices from interfering with satellites and radar.	2003
i	The WPA2 security standard for encrypting Wi-Fi connections.	2004
j	An amendment to let Wi-Fi work on a band that's only available in Japan.	2004
k	Helps clients roam between access points on the same network.	2008
n	"Speedy" Wi-Fi introduced in 2009; now Wi-Fi 4.	2009
p	Car-to-car networking for driverless cars.	2010
r	Faster handoffs between access points, mostly for Wi-Fi phones.	2008
s	Mesh networking.	2011
u	"Hotspot 2.0" authentication for public access points.	2011
v	Lets Wi-Fi devices chat with each other about network conditions.	2011
w	A very low-level security standard.	2009
y	802.11a Wi-Fi in the 3.6GHz band.	2008
z	Tunneled direct links, similar to Wi-Fi Direct.	2010
ac	Speedier Wi-Fi standard, now called Wi-Fi 5.	2013
ad	"Wi-Gig" for transmitting data very short distances on the 60GHz band.	2012
af	"White Spaces" standard for transmitting Wi-Fi over empty TV channels.	2013
ah	Low power, low speed, extended range data transmission, aka "Wi-Fi HaLow."	2017
ak	Lets Wi-Fi be used to bridge other networks more efficiently.	2018
ai	A standard that lets Wi-Fi devices connnect to a network in 100ms.	2016
aj	Wi-Gig for China using the 45GHz band.	2018
aq	A standard to help devices negotiate connections.	2018
Not locked down yet...
ax	Wi-Fi 6, the next version of fast consumer Wi-Fi.	2019
ay	A proposed enhancement to Wi-Gig to make it faster.	2019
az	A way for Wi-Fi devices to better determine their physical location.	2021
ba	"Wake up radios" that use very little power to wake up the main radio.	2020
bb	Networking using visible light.	2021