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Wi-Fi Now Has Version Numbers, and Wi-Fi 6 Comes Out Next Year (theverge.com)
The Wi-Fi Alliance said Wednesday it was rebranding the "802.11" Wi-Fi standards that have long served as a source of potential confusion for users. From now on, said the Wi-Fi Alliance, the current 802.11ac standard will be known as Wi-Fi 5, while its successor 802.11ax will be known as Wi-Fi 6. From a report: In the past, Wi-Fi versions were identified by a letter or a pair of letters that referred to a wireless standard. The current version is 802.11ac, but before that, we had 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11a, and 802.11b. It was not comprehensible, so the Wi-Fi Alliance -- the group that stewards the implementation of Wi-Fi -- is changing it. All of those convoluted codenames are being changed.
Now, instead of wondering whether "ac" is better than "n" or if the two versions even work together, you'll just look at the number. Wi-Fi 5 is higher than Wi-Fi 4, so obviously it's better. And since Wi-Fi networks have always worked together, it's somewhat clearer that Wi-Fi 5 devices should be able to connect with Wi-Fi 4 devices, too.
Now that the retroactive renaming is done, it's time for the future. If you've been closely following router developments over the past year (no judgments here), you'll know that the next generation of Wi-Fi is on the horizon, with the promise of faster speeds and better performance when handling a multitude of devices. It was supposed to be called 802.11ax, but now it'll go by a simpler name: Wi-Fi 6. The Wi-Fi Alliance says that it expects companies to adopt this numerical advertising in place of the classic lettered versions.
Now, instead of wondering whether "ac" is better than "n" or if the two versions even work together, you'll just look at the number. Wi-Fi 5 is higher than Wi-Fi 4, so obviously it's better. And since Wi-Fi networks have always worked together, it's somewhat clearer that Wi-Fi 5 devices should be able to connect with Wi-Fi 4 devices, too.
Now that the retroactive renaming is done, it's time for the future. If you've been closely following router developments over the past year (no judgments here), you'll know that the next generation of Wi-Fi is on the horizon, with the promise of faster speeds and better performance when handling a multitude of devices. It was supposed to be called 802.11ax, but now it'll go by a simpler name: Wi-Fi 6. The Wi-Fi Alliance says that it expects companies to adopt this numerical advertising in place of the classic lettered versions.
For example, call it WiFi 2018.
Then we could have non-techies doing really stupid things like asking if Office 2019 needs WiFi 2019 to work properly.
After window 3.11 Microsoft tossed out the idea of coming up with reasonable versions.
With going to Dates, then just letter combinations and back to a number, then skipping numbers and just sticking on 10
Apple did the same thing. After iOS 9 they just got stuck on OS X (Ten)
Solaris dropped the major version number and just sold the minor number.
Mozilla just changed to match Google Chrome version for no reason.
Version numbers should mean something.
Major number means a major revision or change on key components.
Minor is just for patches and fixes.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
One big problem I see... as far as I can tell, the standard does nothing to clarify whether a given device supports ONLY 2.4GHz, or whether it supports 2.4GHz *and* 5GHz... and if it supports 5GHz, which channels it supports & how.
There are lots of 802.11ac devices, for example, that either don't fully support the use of U-NII(2C) channels, or have crippled DFS implementations that use a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel... satisfying the FCC's requirements, but doing it in a way that results in a product so crippled it almost might as well not even bother with U-NII(2C) channels(*).
I'm also curious to know how they intend to deal with things like AP-roaming and dynamic handoffs... something that was theoretically defined on paper way back in 2008, but (AFAIK) has NEVER really worked properly with consumer devices on home networks. Or pretty much ANYTHING besides a tightly-controlled Enterprise network.
This is my major beef with wireless network gear today... it's DAMN NEAR IMPOSSIBLE, even if you know EXACTLY what standards you need compliance with, to actually walk into a store like Best Buy and make an informed purchasing decision based on their advertising literature and packaging. And if you DO go online and read teardown reviews, there's still no guarantee... the manufacturer could have completely changed not only the general design, but literally changed out the entire chipset with a completely different one that has inferior performance or standards support while keeping the model number (often, even the UPC) unchanged. Linksys & Netgear are both notorious for this... often, they'll indicate the revision on a sticker on the device itself, but put NOTHING on the packaging that's visible before you break the shrinkwrap to indicate whether you're getting the one that earned 5-star reviews & had people drooling, or the later version that got 1 & 2-star reviews and is a pale, cruel imitation of its earlier self.
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(*) Many of the 5GHz channels share spectrum with weather radar & have to make a "robust" attempt to detect its presence and refrain from using frequencies where it's detected. The variability comes from the fact that some devices take the cheap approach... shutting down and going dark entirely for at least a minute to listen for radar, and assuming the worst at the slightest hint of a signal. This makes the FCC happy, but results in a product that's dysfunctional (to put it nicely).
The cheap/usual way is for the AP to just "go dark" for a minute while listening on the channel for things like weather radar transmissions. When this happens, the wifi connection appears to just silently drop for no apparent reason, then reappears about a minute later (assuming it didn't detect what it thought was a radar signature).
The more sophisticated way is for an internet-connected device to include a GPS receiver & query the FCC's database directly after discerning its location... if it's not within range of a known radar site, it can skip the majority of physical DFS checks requiring radio silence (basically, doing it once at startup). Alternatively, the AP could include an additional radio receiver & logic so that prior to "going dark" on a DFS channel to listen, it could temporarily switch to an alternate, non-restricted 5GHz channel (and notify clients it's about to change channels). The alternate channel might suck, but IMHO, "works poorly for a minute " is STILL a huge improvement over "goes dark and doesn't work AT ALL for a minute every hour"
I might be wrong, but I think 802.11ad MIGHT (in theory) have the necessary hardware to simultaneously use two non-contiguous 5GHz channels (say, 36 and 104), in which case it could (conceivably) "go dark" on channel 104 for DFS while maintaining an active link with connected clients (at half-throughput) on channel 36... but whether any 802.11ad device you can actually go out and purchase TODAY as a non-Enterprise customer (or any random electronic device conceivably purchased at Best Buy or Walmart) can actually SUPPORT that is anybody's guess.