Why are WiFi 6 routers so expensive? Is the technology really that advanced?

We have mentioned the technical content related to routers many times before. Many friends have asked about the difference between WiFi 6 routers and ordinary routers? Why are they so expensive? These are questions we will encounter when choosing a router. Today we will learn about this aspect together so that we can choose a router more clearly and avoid being fooled.

1. What is WiFi 6?

WiFi6 is a naming rule proposed by the WiFi Alliance for wireless network standards. 802.11ax was changed to WiFi 6 and released in 2019. Now the routers on the market are basically 802.11ac, which is WiFi 5, which was released by the WiFi Alliance in 2014.

The name change of WiFi 6 allows us who purchase routers to clearly choose the standard without being fooled by unscrupulous manufacturers.

There are currently some WiFi 6 routers, and common brands include Netgear, Xiaomi, and Huawei.

It can be seen that the current WiFi 6 routers are relatively expensive, several times the price of WiFi 5 routers. Let’s take a look at why they are so expensive.

2. The difference between WiFi 6 and traditional WiFi 5 and WiFi 4

So what is the difference between WiFi 6, WiFi 5 and WiFi 4?

• 802.11b = WiFi 1
• 802.11a = WiFi 2
• 802.11g = WiFi 3
• 802.11n = WiFi 4
• 802.11ac = WiFi 5
• 802.11ax standard is simplified to WiFi 6

Compared with traditional WiFi, WiFi 6 is of course faster, has stronger performance, and uses different technology. The maximum speed of Wi-Fi 6 can reach 9.6Gbps. It is born for the 5G era, and optimizes the uplink signal coverage, which is perfectly matched with the NB-IoT Internet of Things. Wi-Fi 5 uses OFDM technology, and Wi-Fi 6 borrows the OFDMA technology used by cellular networks. Many devices can transmit at the same time without queuing and waiting, or competing for network speed, which improves efficiency and reduces latency.

3. Three unique advantages of WiFi 6

1. How fast is WiFi 6?

The maximum transmission rate of WiFi 6 is 9.6 Gbps, which is close to 10 Gbps. In comparison, the speed of WiFi 5 is 3.5 Gbps, which shows that the improvement is not small. WiFi 5 supports a maximum of 4 spatial data streams, while WiFi 6 supports a maximum of 8, which is doubled.

And WiFi 6 supports both 2.4/5GHz frequency bands.

2. WiFi 6 supports both uplink and downlink MU-MIMO

To understand WiFi 6, let’s first understand WiFi 5.

WiFi 5 standard routers support MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology, but only support downlink, which means it can only download content very quickly and upload content more slowly.

The key point is that WiFi 5 only uses SU-MIMO (Single User Multiple Input Multiple Output) when uploading data, so in SU-MIMO (Single User Multiple Input Multiple Output) mode, data can only be transmitted to one device at a time. The transmission between the router and the device will cause a waste of channels, that is, upload is limited.

That is, the upload mode of WiFi 5 is SU-MIMO (Single User Multiple Input Multiple Output) and the download mode is MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple Input Multiple Output). Let's look at the figure below to understand the difference between the two modes.

As shown in the figure above, a router that supports SU-MIMO can only send network signals to one device at a time. Therefore, when sending signals, they can only come one by one, and not all devices at the same time, so the speed cannot be increased.

WiFi 6 supports both uplink and downlink MU-MIMO, which means that WiFi 6 uploads no longer need to use the SU-MIMO queuing mode, which means that MU-MIMO can be experienced when uploading and downloading data between mobile devices and wireless routers, that is, uploads and downloads are very fast and can be carried out simultaneously without queuing, further improving the wireless network bandwidth utilization.

3. The core advantage of WiFi 6: OFDMA technology

For a long time, WiFi has been using OFDM as its core transmission solution. WiFi6 adds multiple access (i.e. multi-user) technology on the basis of OFDM, thus evolving into OFDMA. Therefore, WiFi 6 uses OFDMA.

In fact, OFDMA redesigns the frame structure and subdivides it into several resource units to serve multiple users.

So what is the difference between OFDM and OFDMA?

In OFDM, each user's data transmission occupies one channel, that is to say, if the data of three users needs to occupy three channels, the data can only be handed over to the next user after the user has transmitted the data. This is equivalent to a car that can only carry one person. The person behind needs to wait until the car in front is empty before he can carry you. This is obviously inefficient.

WiFi 6 that uses OFDMA technology allows multiple users to use one channel, which means that no matter how many people come, I can handle them all with one car.

This can be seen from the picture below.

This is equivalent to improving efficiency several times and responding faster. Increasing the effective bandwidth of a single user can also reduce latency, which can be clearly felt in our actual use.

Of course, in addition to these three core technologies, WiFi 6 routers will also improve power consumption and security.