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Re: [6gip] Wi-Fi 6E

Simon Leinen <simon.leinen@switch.ch> Tue, 05 January 2021 09:47 UTC

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From: Simon Leinen <simon.leinen@switch.ch>
To: Alexandre Petrescu <alexandre.petrescu@gmail.com>
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In-Reply-To: <98ff2178-ac71-5eda-92ba-7d1767d37443@gmail.com> (Alexandre Petrescu's message of "Mon, 4 Jan 2021 22:34:35 +0100")
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Subject: Re: [6gip] Wi-Fi 6E
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Alexandre Petrescu writes:
> Le 04/01/2021 à 17:48, Behcet Sarikaya a écrit :
>> Hi all,
>> 6G came to Wi-Fi :) now it is time for smart phones.
>> It is weird why they call it 6E?

> I suspect '6' as using a band somewhere at 6GHz.  But I dont know
> which band more precisely would that be.  Is it the band typically
> used for 802.11-OCB which is 5.875MHz-5.925MHz?

> E in '6E' might mean 'Extended', or some band that is beyond that
> hypothetical 6GHz band.  But I dont know which one.  It could be
> towards 27GHz and why not somewhere at 70GHz.

No, it's slightly different:

"Wi-Fi 6" is the marketing name for IEEE 802.11ax, i.e. the latest
currently available generation of Wifi technology.  No relation to 6G or
6GHz! (The spectral efficiency of Wi-Fi 6/802.11ax is similar to 5G NR,
thanks to high-level QAM and (MU-)MIMO.)  The generation-based "Wi-Fi N"
nomenclature is fairly new.  I think it was introduced with Wi-Fi 5
(IEEE 802.11ac) and was "backported" to earlier Wi-Fi generations.

Early last year, the FCC in the US made a large band of spectrum in the
6GHz band available for unlicensed use.  This is quite significant,
because the new frequency range is significantly larger than both old
Wifi bands (2.4/5GHz) combined(*)!

So people are now building products that support this new frequency
range.  The MAC will be the same as for IEEE 802.11ax/Wifi 6, and the
Wi-Fi Alliance decided to call this new standard "Wi-Fi 6E".

> But I think these bands will continue to stay separated from the bands
> planned for the 6G '6th Generation', which might be in the Terahertz
> range.

> I terms of timeline: WiFi 6E might be on the consumer market maybe in
> a year or two whereas with 6G we look at first trials in 8 years time.

Right, actually I think we will see Wi-Fi 6E products quite a bit before
the end of the current year.

Cheers,
-- 
Simon.

* In the US, this new "6GHz" band is actually the range from 5.925 GHz
  to 7.125 GHz.  Let's see what happens in other regions - for Europe,
  it looks like the band will be smaller (5.945-6.425 GHz?), which is a
  pity because people live more densely in Europe than in the US, so a
  larger band would be quite useful to avoid collisions between
  neighbors.  Oh well.

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