Ought to a Mac or iPhone consumer replace to a Wi-Fi 6 or 6E router at residence?

The Wi-Fi Alliance, which defines the certification course of for industry-standard Wi-Fi tools, created a brand new branding system a couple of years in the past for all generations of Wi-Fi ever launched. Beforehand, Wi-Fi was usually recognized by obscure IEEE Engineering Requirements Working Group numbers, corresponding to 802.11n or 802.11ac. To make it simpler to combine and match gadgets and see which era you are utilizing, the alliance has named the merchandise Wi-Fi 4, 5, and 6. (The older 802.11 requirements have been so outdated that they weren’t numbered however at the moment are, by inference, 1, 2, and three.)

Wi-Fi 4, 5, and 6 characterize generations of requirements, every sooner and extra able to overlaying residence and workplace areas on the quickest speeds. The most recent updates have targeted on offering most bandwidth on the similar time to a number of cellular gadgets, corresponding to iPhones.

All three of those variations of Wi-Fi can handle alerts throughout two frequency bands, or bands of spectrum, devoted to finishing up makes use of that don’t require licenses, not like mobile networks. Wi-Fi 4, 5, and 6 function within the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. (Many international locations world wide are providing the identical or practically the identical allocations, though the US has usually been within the lead with the most important parts of it open.) As these requirements improved, many of the good points have been in an more and more bigger area reserved by governments in 2016. The 5 GHz band is for common client and enterprise use. This now allows multi-gigabit per second throughput, which represents a formidable acquire over the unique 11 Mbps velocity within the first iteration of Wi-Fi.

What’s WiFi 6E?

Tools makers need to improve Wi-Fi efficiency and resiliency, and regulatory authorities in a number of international locations (together with the US) have opened up extra frequencies to be used so as to add the potential for larger bandwidth and decrease interference, this time at 6 GHz. (Wi-Fi 6 and 6GHz don’t have anything in widespread.)

This led to the Wi-Fi Alliance breaking their easy numbering system and including Wi-Fi 6E to distinguish between “common” Wi-Fi 6, which operates over the two.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and the “new” 6GHz gadgets: E Awkwardly symbolized as “plus 6GHz”. I perceive the logic, however it’s positively complicated.

Wi-Fi Alliance

What does all this imply, by way of efficiency?

Apple has led or stored tempo with most Wi-Fi generations as they’ve come, and that features Wi-Fi 6E. The most recent iPhone 15 and 15 Max have Wi-Fi 6, whereas the 15 Professional and 15 Professional Max have a slight benefit with Wi-Fi 6E. Apple’s M sequence Macs principally have Wi-Fi 6 built-in; Some newer fashions have 6E.

If you happen to’re nonetheless utilizing Wi-Fi 5 in your house, you in all probability will not must improve except:

• You might have useless zones the place you do not appear to get any protection, or it is spotty or irritating.
• You see a giant distinction in velocity in numerous elements of your property, particularly whereas streaming or transferring recordsdata.
• You might have gigabit web service and do not see wherever close to that information price when testing out of your gadgets.

Wi-Fi Alliance

You’ll be able to simply run some informal checks in your web velocity and community efficiency with Speedtest, which has native apps for iOS/iPadOS, macOS, and different working programs. Though you’re all the time topic to variation within the velocity of your Web connection, regularly working throughput exams in numerous places will provide help to detect actual issues.

You too can confer with this earlier column, “The right way to Check Your Mac’s Web Velocity ​​and High quality,” to study instruments included in macOS or that you could set up.

In macOS, there is a easy approach to detect the standard and velocity of your present Wi-Fi router’s connection: maintain down the Choice key whereas deciding on the Wi-Fi menu to see some preliminary interface particulars, specifically the “Tx Charge.” The Tx price is the information price negotiated between your Mac and the router it is linked to. With a contemporary Mac and a high-speed Wi-Fi 5 community, you need to all the time see transmission charges within the excessive 100Mbps. Testing on my Mac mini proper now, about 8 toes from my Wi-Fi 6 router, I am seeing a transmission price of 1,200Mbps (1.2Gbps); On a Wi-Fi 5 router, you may see 866Mbps while you’re near the router.

If you happen to meet any of the above standards and at present have a mid-priced Wi-Fi 5 setup, upgrading to Wi-Fi 6 or 6E {hardware} will present a lift, although you may virtually solely discover it in streaming media between gadgets in your community. Or stream and obtain recordsdata to or from the Web. You might even see 20 to 200 p.c sooner productiveness within the worst-performing areas of your property.

Generally, your Web connection and the velocity of on-line servers will restrict your efficiency greater than fashionable Wi-Fi 5.

Wi-Fi Alliance

This Mac 911 article is in response to a query despatched by Macworld reader Jeff.

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