Wi-Fi Alliance Announces Launch of Wi-Fi 6 Certification Program

The Wi-Fi Alliance has announced the launch of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6, its certification program for devices based on IEEE 802.11ax.

Wi-Fi 6 provides significant capacity, performance, and latency improvements.

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 supports a more diverse set of devices and applications, from those requiring peak performance in demanding enterprise environments to those requiring low power and low latency in smart homes or industrial IoT scenarios. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 delivers nearly four times the capacity of Wi-Fi 5, and is an evolutionary advancement for Wi-Fi’s ability to deliver high-performance infrastructure and optimized connectivity to all devices on a network simultaneously – bringing noticeable improvements in densely connected Wi-Fi environments. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 delivers critical connectivity that supports cellular networks, and leverages high speeds, low latency, power efficiency, greater capacity, and enhanced coverage to deliver many advanced 5G services.


“Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 is ushering in a new era of Wi-Fi, building on Wi-Fi’s core characteristics to provide better performance in every environment for users, greater network capacity for service providers to improve coverage for their customers, and new opportunities for advanced applications,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance. “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 will deliver improvements in connectivity, including in high density locations and IoT environments.”

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 requires Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WPA3. Advanced capabilities available in Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 include:
● Orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA): effectively shares channels to increase network efficiency and lower latency for both uplink and downlink traffic in high demand environments
● Multi-user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO): allows more downlink data to be transferred at once and enables an access point to transmit data to a larger number of devices concurrently
● 160 MHz channels: increases bandwidth to deliver greater performance with low latency
Target wake time (TWT): significantly improves battery life in Wi-Fi devices, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices
● 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation mode (1024-QAM): increases throughput in Wi-Fi devices by encoding more data in the same amount of spectrum
● Transmit beamforming: enables higher data rates at a given range resulting in greater network capacity

The Samsung Galaxy Note10 is the first Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 smartphone. Apple's next generation iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro also support Wi-Fi 6.

Here are some of the first products designated Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6:
● Broadcom BCM4375
● Broadcom BCM43698
● Broadcom BCM43684
● Cypress CYW 89650 Auto-Grade Wi-Fi 6 Certified
● Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) AX200 (for PCs)
● Intel Home Wi-Fi Chipset WAV600 Series (for routers and gateways)
● Marvell 88W9064 (4x4) Wi-Fi 6 Dual-Band STA
● Marvell 88W9064 (4x4) + 88W9068 (8x8) Wi-Fi 6 Concurrent Dual-Band AP
● Qualcomm Networking Pro 1200 Platform
● Qualcomm FastConnect 6800 Wi-Fi 6 Mobile Connectivity Subsystem
● Ruckus R750 Wi-Fi 6 Access Point


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