Tag: 802.11ax specification

Linksys and Deutsche Telekom bring Wi-Fi 6 home networks to the mainstream

Linksys MR7350 Wi-Fi 6 Mesh Router press picture courtesy of Belkin

Linksys MR7350 Wi-Fi 6 Broadband Mesh router – the first of the affordable Wi-Fi 6 routers

Articles

Deutsche Telekom Speedport Smart 4 Plus

Telekom Speedport Smart 4 Plus mit Wi-Fi 6 steht in den Startlöchern {Telekom Speedport Smart 4 Plus with Wi-Fi 6 is in the starting blocks) | Caschy’s Blog (German language / Deutsche Sprache)

Linksys MAX-STREAM AX1800 Mesh Wi-Fi 6 Router

Linksys unveils a more affordable mesh router with WiFi 6 | Engadget

From the horse’s mouth

Linksys

Linksys Expands MAX-STREAM Mesh Router Portfolio With Its Most Affordable WiFi 6 Solution (Press Release)

MAX-Stream Mesh Wi-Fi 6 Router (MR7350) – Product Page

My Comments

Two companies have pushed Wi-Fi routers which are about bringing Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) technology within the reach of everyone who is establishing a home network based around a fixed broadband Internet service. This is being drawn out of necessity thanks to smartphones, tahlets and laptops released through this year being equipped with Wi-Fi 6 connectivity.

The first of these is Deutsche Telekom who have poised to release in to the German market a unit that will be typically supplied to a household signing up for fixed broadband Internet offered by that telco. This unit, known as the Speedport Smart 4 Plus is equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and will be about providing this technology in a turnkey manner to a home Internet service customer. It is ready to be launched at the IFA 2020 trade fair at Berlin in September.

The other is Linksys who have offered the MR7350 broadband router through retail channels for USD$149. It is rated as an AX1800 unit which will provide an average throughput for a Wi-Fi 6 router. But it is able to be part of Linksys’s Intellignent Mesh distributed-Wi-Fi setup, thus allowing you to expand your network’s Wi-Fi range when teamed with a compatible Linksys Wi-Fi router.

Engadget’s review described the Linksys MR7350 router as being fit for starting a Wi-Fi 6 network to cover an average-sized apartment or townhome unit. It can also be seen as an affordable infill access point for a Linksys Intelligent Mesh distributed-Wi-Fi setup, especially if you decide to put a better router from that product range as the Internet edge of your home network.

But what I am pleased about these devices is that they are an effort to bring Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) technology in to most home networks. These efforts may be continued on by other carriers, and home-network equipment manufacturers.

Wi-Fi 6 is here for certain

Articles

TP-Link Archer AX6000 Wi-Fi 6 broadband router product picture courtesy of TP-Link USA

TP-Link Archer AX6000 Wi-Fi 6 broadband router – an example of a Wi-Fi 6 router

Wi-Fi 6: Better, faster internet is coming — here’s what you need to know | CNet

Should You Upgrade to Wi-Fi 6? | PC Mag

Previous Coverage

New nonenclature for Wi-Fi wireless networks

What will 802.11ax Wi-Fi wireless networking be about?

From the horse’s mouth

Wi-Fi Alliance

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™ delivers new Wi-Fi® era (Prress Release)

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™ delivers new Wi-Fi® era {Product Page)

My Comments

The Wi-Fi Alliance have started this week to certify devices as to whether they are compliant to the new Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless-network standard. This effectively means that this technology will be ready for prime time.

But what will it offer?

NETGEAR Orbi with Wi-Fi 6 press picture courtesy of NETGEAR

NETGEAR Orbi Wi-Fi 6 – the first distributed Wi-Fi setup with Wi-Fi 6 technology

Wi-Fi 6 will offer a theoretical data throughput of 10Gbps which is 30% faster than Wi-Fi 5 setups. There will also be the ability for one access point or route to support many Wi-Fi client devices at once thus preventing that device from being “oversubscribed” and underperforming when many devices come on board. It answers a common situation where a small network that is typically served by one Wi-Fi router ends up having to support multiple Wi-Fi client devices like laptops, smartphones, smart speakers of the Amazon Echo kind, and set-top devices for streaming video. It is facilitated through the use of a higher-capacity MU-MIMO technology.

In addition, the Wi-Fi 6 routers and access points implement OFDMA technology to share channels and use them efficiently. It will mean that multiple Wi-Fi 6 networks can coexist without underperforming which will be of benefit for apartment dwellers or trade shows and conferences where multiple Wi-Fi networks are expected to coexist.

There is also the targeted wake time feature to “schedule” use of a Wi-Fi 6 network by battery-operated devices. This will allow them to know when to send data updates to the network especially if they don’t change status often, which will benefit “Internet-of-Things” devices where there is the desire to run them for a long time on commodity batteries.

A requirement that will be placed on Wi-Fi 6 devices is to support WPA3 security for their network security standard. It is to improve the expectation upon these devices for a secure Wi-Fi network.

At the moment, routers and access points based on Wi-Fi 6 will be positioned at the premium end of the market and be typically targeted towards “be first with the latest” early adopters. But over the next year or two, the market will settle out with devices at more affordable price points.

Premium smartphones, tablets and laptops that are being redesigned from the ground up with new silicon will end up with Wi-Fi 6 network interface chipsets. This will apply to the Samsung Galaxy S10 family, computers based on Intel Ice Lake CPUs and the Apple iPhone 11 family. As well, some network-hardware vendors are offering add-on Wi-Fi 6 network adaptors that plug in to your laptop computer’s USB port to enable it for the new technology.

At the moment, if you are running a network with a Wi-Fi 5 access point or router that is serving devices based on Wi-Fi 4 (802.11n) and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) technology, you don’t need to upgrade the access point or router yet.

But if you have to replace that device due to the existing unit dying or you intend to set up a new Wi-Fi network, it may be worth investigating the purchase of network infrastructure equipment based on Wi-Fi 6.

You will also find that each device will be provided with “best case” performance based on its technology. This means that if you install a Wi-Fi 6 access point or router on your network then subsequently sign a subsidised-equipment post-paid service contract for a smartphone with Wi-Fi 6 technology built in, the smartphone will work to Wi-Fi 6 levels while your laptop that supports Wi-Fi 5 technology works to that prior technology without impeding your smartphone’s Wi-Fi 6 functionality.

If you bought one of the earlier Wi-Fi 6 routers or distributed Wi-Fi setups which works to pre-certification standards, check your manufacturer’s site for any new firmware that will have the device working to the current specifications and upload it to your device.

Wi-Fi 6 wireless networks will become a major boon for evolving local-area networks towards higher capacity and faster throughput on wireless segments.

NETGEAR to offer one of the first Wi-Fi 6 distributed-wireless setups

Article NETGEAR Orbi with Wi-Fi 6 press picture courtesy of NETGEAR

Netgear takes its Orbi mesh Wi-Fi system to the next level with Wi-Fi 6 | PC World

From the horse’s mouth

NETGEAR

LEADING A NEW ERA OF WI-FI, NETGEAR ANNOUNCES ORBI MESH WI-FI SYSTEM USING WI-FI 6 SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED FOR THE GIGABIT INTERNET HOME (Press Release)

Product Page

My Comments

As Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) wireless networking comes to the fore, there will be a desire to see distributed-wireless-network systems that support this technology. Here it’s about being able to support many Wi-Fi client devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones along with devices that are designed “Wi-Fi first” including smart-home devices.

NETGEAR have started to refresh the Orbi distributed Wi-Fi system by making a new version that supports this new technology as part of the product lineup they are premiering in Las Vegas at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. It uses the separate radio backhaul that their Orbi system is know for, thus avoiding a dent in performance that can be brought about with systems that use the main “fronthaul” Wi-Fi segment for their backbone data transfer.

But it uses four data streams across the dedicated Wi-Fi 6 backhaul to allow high-speed high-capacity data transfer. It is in addition to four concurrent data streams on the 2.4GHz band and four concurrent data streams on the 5GHZ band for the client devices to use. The system is powered by Qualcomn networking system-on-chip silicon that allows for the higher data throughput.

It is expected to appear during the second half of 2019, primarily as an updated take of the RBK50 wide-coverage devices. A question that will perplex those of us who have an Orbi distributed-Wi-Fi setup is whether the existing Orbi equipment will work with the newer Wi-Fi 6 Orbi devices.

This is more so where smaller or specialised Orbi satellite modules like the RBS50 Orbi Outdoor Satellite unit or the Orbi Voice which is a combination of a satellite unit and Amazon-Alexa-driven smart speaker are part of your Orbi setup. Or you like the idea of “pushing down” existing equipment to secondary purposes so you get more value out of the equipment you own.

What is being highlighted is the idea of using Wi-Fi 6 as a future-proof approach for wireless local networking, including distributed- Wi-FI setups.

What to expect in personal IT over 2019

Internet and Network technologies

Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot press image courtesy of NETGEAR USA

Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot – first retail 5G device

5G mobile broadband will see more carriers deploying this technology in more locations whether as a trial setup or to run with it as a full revenue service. It will also see the arrival of client devices like smartphones or laptops rather than just USB modems or modem routers supporting this technology.

Some users will see 5G mobile broadband as supplanting fixed broadband services but the fixed broadband technologies will be improved with higher data throughput that competes with that technology. As well, fixed broadband especially fibre-based next-generation broadband will also be required to serve as an infrastructure-level backhaul for 5G mobile broadband setups.

Wi-Fi 6 a.k.a. 802.11ax Wi-Fi wireless will be officially on the scene with more devices becoming available. It may also mean the arrival not just of new access points and routers supporting this standard but the arrival at least of client-side chipsets to allow laptops, tablets and smartphones to work with the new technology. Some countries’ radio-regulation authorities will look towards opening up the 6GHz spectrum for Wi-Fi purposes.

It also runs alongside the increased deployment of distributed-Wi-Fi systems with multiple access points linked by a wired or wireless backhaul. This will be facilitated with Wi-Fi EasyConnect and EasyMesh standards to create distributed-Wi-Fi setups with equipment from different vendors, which means that vendors don’t need to reinvent the wheel to build a distributed-Wi-Fi product line.

Consumer electronics and home entertainment

LG 4K OLED TVs press picture courtesy of LG America

LG 4K OLED TVs – a technology that could be coming more affordable over 2019

4K UHDTV with HDR technology will head towards its evolution phase with it maturing as a display technology. This will be with an increased number of sets implementing OLED, QLED or similar display technologies. It will also lead to more affordable HDR-capable TV models coming on to the scene.

Screen sizes of 75” and more will also cut in to affordable price ranges/ This will also be augmented with OLED-based screens becoming available in a “rollup” form that comes in an out like a blind or a traditional pull-down screen. Similarly, there will be a look towards the concept of “visual wallpaper” in order to justify the use of large screens in peoples’ households, including using the screen as a way to show messages or other information.

Online services will still become the primary source of 4K HDR TV content but the 4K UHD Blu-Ray disc will increase its foothold as the “packaged collectable” distribution medium for 4K video content. ATSC 3.0 and DVB-T2 will be pushed as a way to deliver 4K UHDTV content over the traditional TV aerial with this method of TV reception regaining its importance amongst the “cord-cutting” generations who dump cable and satellite TV.

JBL Link View lifestyle press image courtesy of Harman International

More of these voce-driven home-assistant devices with screens over this year

Another major direction affecting the home network and consumer electronics is an increased presence of voice-driven home-assistant services in this class of device. Typically this will be in the form of soundbars, wireless speakers, TV remote controls and similar home-entertainment equipment having endpoint functionality for Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.

As well, the “smart screens” like what Lenovo, JBL and Amazon are offering will become more ubiquitous, with the ability to augment responses from a voice-driven home assistant. It will be part of having more household appliances and other gadgets work tightly with voice-driven home assistants.

It may be seen as an effort to bridge the multiple network-based multiroom audio platforms so you can run equipment from different vendors as part of one system. But the problem here will be that such setups may end up being more awkward to use.

The smartphone will be facing some key challenges what with people hanging on to these devices for longer and / or running two of them – one for their work or business along with one for personal life. Some new form-factors like folding smartphones will be demonstrated while some of them will be optimised for high-performance activities like gaming.

These devices are being augmented with the return of mobile feature phones or basic mobile phones. These phones are like the mobile phones that were on the market through the 1990s and 2000s and don’t connect to the home network or Internet or use these resources in a very limited way. They are appearing due to people wanting detachment from online life like the Social Web usually as part of the “back to basics” life calling, or simply as a fail-over mobile telephony device.

But as laptops and tablets become full-on computing and communications devices, the feature phones and basic phones will simply work in a complementary way to allow voice telephony or text messaging on the same service in a handheld form.

This situation is being underscored by more mobile carriers offering mobile telecommunications services that aren’t necessarily bound to one particular device. This is to face realities like the connected car, smartwatches with mobile broadband, Mi-Fi devices amongst other things which will be expected to use the same mobile service.

In the same context, there will be a market requirement for mobile communications devices, especially mobile phones, to support two or more services including multiple numbers on the same service. Primarily this will be driven by eSIM technology and over-the-air provisioning, but it will facilitate ideas like totally separate services for one’s business and private lives, or to cater towards people who regularly travel across international borders.

Security and regulatory issues

I do see a strong push towards more secure Internet-of-Things devices for residential, commercial and other applications over this year. This is as regulators in Europe and California put the pressure on IoT vendors to up their game regarding “secure-by-design” products. There is also the expectation that the Internet Of Things needs to be fit for purpose with transport applications, utilities, medical applications and the like where there is an expectation for safe secure reliable operation that cannot be compromised by cyber-attacks.

Here, it may be about the establishment of device-firmware “bug-bounty” programs by manufacturers, industry bodies and others used to unearth any software weaknesses. Then it will lead towards regular maintenance updates becoming the norm for dedicated-purpose devices. It may also include a requirement to for device vendors and end-users to support automatic installation of these maintenance updates but allow for manual installation of major “feature-addition” updates.

This is in conjunction with the Silicon Valley behemoths like Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google having to change their ways due to them under increased scrutiny from governments, media, activist investors, civil society and end-users. It will affect issues like end-user privacy and data transparency, financial and corporate-governance / human-resources practices, along with the effective market power that they have across the globe.

Equipment design

Use of Gallium Nitride transistors for power conversion

A major trend to see more of this year is the increased use of Gallium Nitride transistor technology. This is beyond using this chemical compound for optoelectronics such as blue, white or multicolour LEDs or laser diodes installed in Blu-Ray players and BD-ROM drive for the purpose of reading these optical discs.

Here, it is to multiply the effect silicon had on the design of audio equipment through the 1970s leading to highly-powerful equipment in highly-compact or portable forms. This is through improved heat management that leads to the compact form alongside more powerful transistors for switch-mode circuits.

One of the initial applications will be in the form of highly-compact USB-C Power-Delivery-compliant chargers for laptops and smartphones. This year will be about an increased number of finished products and reference designs that, depending on the application,  yield more than 45W of DC power for USB-C PD applications from either 100-250VAC mains power or 12-24VDC vehicle / marine power. It could then be affecting multiple-outlet “charging bars” and similar devices where the goal is to have something highly compact and portable to power that Dell XPS 13 or Nintendo Switch alongside your smartphone.

I see it also affecting how power-supply circuitry for computers, peripherals, network equipment and the like is designed. This can lead towards equipment having the compact profile along with reduced emphasis on factoring in thermal management in the design like use of fans or venting.

ARM-based microarchitecture to compete with Intel’s traditional microarchitecture

In the late 1980s, the then-new RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) microarchitecture excelled with graphics and multimedia applications. This is while Intel’s x86-based 16-bit traditional-microarchitecture used in the IBM PC and its clones were focused simply on number-crunching.

But 32-bit iterations of the x86 microarchitecture were able to encroach on graphics and multimedia since the early 1990s. Eventually it led to Apple moving the Macintosh platform away from the RISC-based Motorola CPUs towards Intel-based x86 and x64 traditional microarchitecture.

This was while Acorn Computers and a handful of other computer names worked towards ARM RISC microarchitecture which ended up in smartphones, tablets, set-top boxes and similar applications.

Now this microarchitecture is making a comeback with the Always-Connected PCs which are laptops that run Windows 10 on Qualcomm ARM processors for higher power efficiency. It was brought about with Microsoft releasing a Windows 10 variant that runs on ARM microarchitecture rather than classic microarchitecture.

This will lead to some computer vendors running with at least one or two of these computers in their ultraportable product ranges. But there is investigation in to taking ARM technology to higher-power computing applications like gaming and server setups.

The big question for Intel is what can they offer when it comes to microprocessor technology that can answer what Qualcomm and others are offering using their ARM processors.

Increased SSD capacity

The solid-state drive will start to approach bill-of-material per-kilobyte price parity with the 500GB hard disk. Here, it could lead towards laptops and ultra-compact desktop computers coming with 512Gb SSDs in the affordable configurations. This is also applying to USB-based external storage devices as well as what is integrated in a computer.

Here, the concept of high-speed energy-saving non-volatile storage that would satisfy a “sole computer” situation for a reasonable outlay is coming to fruition. What will still happen with the traditional mechanical hard disk is that it will end up satisfying high-capacity storage requirements like NAS units or servers. In some situations, it may lead towards more NAS units supporting multi-tier storage approaches like bring frequently-used data forward.

Conclusion

This is just a representative sample of what 2019 is likely to bring about for one’s personal and business online life, but as with each year, more situations will crop up over the year.

5G mobile broadband and Wi-Fi can complement each other

Article

Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot press image courtesy of NETGEAR USA

Netgear Nighthawk 5G Mobile Hotspot – first retail 5G device

Why You’ll Still Need Wifi When 5G Is Everywhere, According To The Wi-Fi Alliance | Gizmodo

Wi-Fi Alliance: Wi-Fi, 5G will be complementary | FierceWireless

My Comments

There is some hype being driven by organisations defending the 5G mobile broadband and Wi-Fi wireless LAN technologies about their technology being the only one for our connected lives.

Some existing devices use 5G mobile-broadband technology but connect to endpoint devices like mobile phones using Wi-Fi. Initially they are routers being deployed by mobile carriers as a proof of concept or for network trials while AT&T were offering a “Mi-Fi” for retail sale in the USA that implements 5G technology. At the moment, 5G hasn’t been rolled out in the form of a smartphone or a mobile-broadband modem that is integrated in or connected by USB to a host computer.

Both Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac and prior technologies) and 4G LTE mobile broadband have seen widespread deployment with each technology being seen by mobile users as offering a complementary role. Networks and equipment running the newer technologies (5G and Wi-Fi 6) will be backward compatible and offer a best-case approach to this compatibility. That is if both the network and end-user equipment run the same technology, the user gains the most benefit from what the new technology offers.

It has been identified that both technologies at their latest specification can complement each other. Here, 5G will earn its keep in the outdoors and in a mobile context while the Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) technology will earn its keep indoors. This is although public-access Wi-Fi networks will be seen by mobile carriers as a cost-effective data-offload tool.

Wi-Fi also has supporting technologies like WiGig and Wi-Fi HaLow. The former one will match 5G for speed but uses a short range equivalent to an ordinary room in the house, while the latter benefits from long range and power efficiency but doesn’t have the speed. Wi-Fi HaLow will then end up in the smart-home, smart-building, connected-car and smart-city application spaces where data throughput isn’t all that necessary. This is while WiGig will end up with virtual reality, augmented reality, 4G video and other bandwidth-intensive applications.

Then there is also the kind of spectrum available for each technology. Wi-Fi technologies primarily rely on unlicensed radio spectrum which makes them popular for households and businesses to deploy. It is in contrast to 5G which, like other cellular mobile telecommunications technologies, relies on licensed radio spectrum which the mobile carrier has to deal with the national radiocommunications authority organise and purchase a license to use.

There is also a trend regarding wireless-network equipment design where there is a software-defined approach towards the media-level components. This is facilitated with small-footprint high-capability computing power and can allow the same piece of equipment to honour newer standards.

Another factor that is never raised is the concept of the local network where data can be transferred between co-located devices at the same premises. 5G is really positioned as a wireless “last mile” setup for providing telecommunications and Internet service to the end-user. This is while Wi-Fi is intended primarily to work as a local network but is used to distribute a single broadband service to multiple endpoint devices.

What really is now seen is that the new 5G mobile broadband and Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) LAN technologies can complement each other in a horses-for-courses manner.

New nonenclature for Wi-Fi wireless networks

Article ASUS RT-AC5300 router press picture courtesy of ASUS

802.11ac? 802.11n? Wi-Fi Alliance stops with the jargon, goes with Wi-Fi 6 | Android Authority

Wi-Fi Alliance Simplifies Things With Version Numbers | Tom’s Hardware

From the horse’s mouth

Wi-Fi Alliance

Wi-Fi Alliance® introduces Wi-Fi 6 (The Beacon blog)

My Comments

The Wi-Fi Alliance have decided to adopt a new nonenclature for the different main standards that Wi-Fi networks support. This  is in stark contrast to referring to each standard by its IEEE reference which can sound confusing.

It will be used in product marketing material and specifications sheets to refer to the effective “generation” that the router / access point or client device will support so one can know what is the expected “best” capability offered by that device.

But the device’s operating system or firmware will be able to indicate on devices with some sort of dynamic visual user interface the “generation number” the network connection will support. In the case of client devices like computers or smartphones, this will be to indicate the “best available” network expectation for the current connection.

Similarly, people and companies who provide a public-access Wi-Fi network can reference the kind of performance expected out of this network by using the “generation number” indicating what technology it would support. It could be use as a means to gauge the network’s suitability for handling peak loads such as, for example, a transit station during peak hours or a fully-occupied hotel.

802.11b Wi-Fi 1
802.11a Wi-Fi 2
802.11g Wi-Fi 3
802.11n Wi-Fi 4 Determined by Wi-Fi Alliance
802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 Determined by Wi-Fi Alliance
802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 Determined by Wi-Fi Alliance

A question that will come up will be is what way will the device indicate whether it is a simultaneous multi-band device or how many MIMO streams it concurrently runs. This will be of importance with Wi-Fi 4 / 5 / 6 (802.11n/ac/ax) devices that can work on two or more bands and have MIMO abilities but at differing levels of capability and performance.

Classic examples of this could be some low-cost access points and Wi-Fi extenders capable of working to dual-stream 802.11n on the 2.4GHz band known as N300 devices or mobile devices working on single-stream or dual-stream MIMO chipsets as part of battery conservation.

On this site going forward, I will be using the new “Wi-Fi generation number” along with the IEEE standard reference for describing the Wi-Fi network technology offered by a network device. It will also apply to describing minimum Wi-Fi standards particular to a networking situation that I write about.

For example, I may describe the Dell XPS 13’s Wi-Fi abilities as Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) dual-stream to reflect the effective generation Wi-Fi supported by that Ultrabook.

At least this new nonenclature will be a barometer to indicate whether a Wi-Fi network is running new technology to allow it to perform properly.

Are we going to expect more from distributed Wi-Fi setups?

Article

NETGEAR Orbi distributed WiFi system press image courtesy of NETGEAR

We could be expecting more from distributed-Wi-Fi devices of the NETGEAR Orbi ilk thanks to 802.11ax Wi-Fi and the Internet of Things

Distributed Wi-Fi: How a Pod in Every Room™ Enables Connected Smart Homes | Wi-Fi Now Blog

My Comments

The Wi-Fi Now consortium wrote up a blog article where we are to expect more from a distributed Wi-Fi installation especially in the context of Internet Of Things and the smart home.

One of the key drivers for this issue will be the 802.11ax standard for Wi-Fi wireless networks. This is intended to be the successor to the current 802.11ac but also is about high throughput and the ability for multiple devices to work at once from the same network. As well, it is expected to yield high-efficiency operation with an experience similar using an Ethernet network that uses a switch like when you have devices connected to your home network’s router via its Ethernet LAN ports.

According to the article, 802.11ax with its increased throughput is pitched as being suitable for newer broadband-service technologies like fibre-to-the-premises, DOCSIS 3.1 HFC cable-modem and 5G mobile broadband. In the context of the distributed Wi-Fi network, 802.11ax will be positioned for use as a wireless backhaul between the access-points and the edge router that links to the Internet.

But the article places an expectation on these access-point pods being installed in every room due to the increased number of Wi-Fi-based network-enabled devices connected to the home network. There is also an expectation that these access points will support Bluetooth and/or Zigbee as well as Wi-Fi thus becoming a localised network bridge for smart-home and Internet-Of-Things devices based on these wireless technologies. But I would place in the same scope Z-Wave, DECT-ULE and other similar “Internet Of Things” wireless technologies.

Previously this kind of functionality was offered through separate network bridges that interlinked a Bluetooth, Zigbee or similar-technology device to your home network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet.

Such equipment was typically offered as an accessory for a smart-home device like a smart lock by the device’s manufacturer and you weren’t sure if this piece of equipment would work with other smart-home devices implementing the same wireless-link technology. Or it was offered as a “smart home hub” which worked with devices using a particular wireless technology and supporting certain function classes. But these hubs offered various smart-home controller functions including remote management as long as you were using particular apps or services.

This new approach could allow for an increased number of IoT devices in each room “talking” with the access-point pods and this data moves along the backhaul to the “edge” router for that “smart-home-as-a-service” setup. The article also sees it as allowing for an IoT device, especially one that is battery-powered, not to be part of a large Zigbee, Z-Wave or Bluetooth mesh thus leading to increased device reliability. I would also see it become relevant with setups that use technologies like DECT-ULE which use a “hub and spoke” topology.

For this concept to work properly, the network-bridge devices that interlink Zigbee or similar IoT wireless technologies to an IP-based network have to work independent of particular smart-home controller software. Then the smart-home controller software has to be able to work with any IoT-based device no matter which of these network bridges they are talking to as long as they are on the same logical network. This situation would be of concern with portable user-interface devices like remote controls that are likely to be taken around the premises.

Although this article is Wi-Fi focused, I would still see the wired network being important. For example, some house designers and builders are even wiring the homes they design with Ethernet whether as standard or as an option while the home is being built or renovated. As well, there is powerline networking based on either HomePlug AV500 or AV2 standards. Here, these wired-network technologies are still viable as a backhaul connection alternative especially if you are dealing with building materials and techniques like double-brick or sandstone construction, or foil-lined insulation that can slow down Wi-Fi wireless communications.

But could these wireless-network access-point “pods” be simply a dedicated device installed in each room? It could be feasible for a device that offers other functionality that benefits from the network to be an access point or one of these “pods” in its own right. For example, a network-capable printer or a consumer-electronics device like a home-theatre receiver could connect to an existing network’s backhaul but also be an access point in its own right.  In this context, a Smart TV installed in a lounge area further down the end of the house could become an access point or smart-home “pod” to cover that end area.

The idea has been proven in the form of the Amazon Echo Plus smart speaker which has a built-in network-bridge function for Zigbee smart-home devices. This is alongside the ability for it to be a controller for these devices in context with the Amazon Alexa ecosystem.

What is being put forward with the Wi-Fi NOW “Pod In Every Room” concept is the idea of a single logical network with a high-speed wireless data backbone and access-point devices serving all wireless networking applications for both regular data transfer and smart-home/IoT applications. As long as the approach is driven by common open standards without dependence on particular technology owned by one vendor, then there is the ability for this approach to multi-function Wi-Fi networking to work properly.

What will 802.11ax Wi-Fi wireless networking be about?

ASUS RT-AC5300 router press picture courtesy of ASUS

802.11ax will be the next Wi-Fi standard that will grace our routers, but this will require newer hardware

There is the impending plan to define the IEEE 802.11ax Wi-Fi wireless local-area-network standard which is intended to supplant the 802.11ac standard used for general-purpose Wi-Fi networks. Qualcomm are even offering an initial lot of silicon for this standard in order to have something that can be proven.

But what is it about?

One of the man benefits is wider bandwidth which allows for five times more bandwidth than what 802.11ac offers. But there is also the idea that we will see Gigabit throughput levels being offered for real rather than as headline speeds which are based on a “link-level” speed without any error correction.

This is brought about with increased MIMO multiple-antenna / multiple-front-end abilities such as MIMO-OFDM, which is expected to improve Wi-Fi’s robustness. The MU-MIMO functionality which effectively provides optimum bandwidth to each client device will work for downstream and upstream data.

Yarra's Edge apartment blocks

802.11ax Wi-Fi wireless will benefit apartments, hotels and trade shows where many Wi-Fi networks do co-exist

802.11ax Wi-Fi implements spatial frequency reuse to improve network reliability in high-density setups. Current Wi-Fi setups don’t really perform reliably when they are faced with a high-density setup like a trade show with connections dropping off too easily. But there is the ability to reuse frequencies and co-exist to assure improved reliability in these situations. It also answers a reality with Wi-Fi and high-density urban living where you will come across with each small apartment, office or shop in a large building ends up being equipped with its own Wi-Fi network, something that will be more so with next-generation broadband service being delivered to the premises.

Something more real that will underscore the robustness that 802.11ax provides

To the same extent, this level of robustness in dense Wi-Fi environments also applies to situations where Wi-Fi networks that have multiple access points including range extenders are being implemented by most people to assure optimum network coverage for their portable devices. It is a practice underscored by the reality that a Wi-Fi router is typically installed at one end of the premises because it has to be colocated with the connection that facilitates a wired broadband connection like a telephone or cable-TV socket.

Let’s not forget that the Wi-Fi WMM and WMM Power Save standards will be improved under this specification to assure continual throughput for streamed multimedia content; along with power-efficiency for battery operated devices. These standards will be improved to cater towards an increased volume of data.

The 802.11ax Wi-Fi standard is not intended to be set in stone before 2019 although there will be equipment being released to earlier drafts through the next few years. This is a practice that has happened with 802.11n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi, with the Wi-Fi Alliance even calling the standards before IEEE had the chance to call them. But it could be seen more or less as the wireless local network standard to complement next-generation fibre-optic or 5G wireless broadband Internet services that offer Gigabit or more bandwidth.