6GHz, the best Wi-Fi standard available, is coming soon

Has your screen ever frozen during a Zoom meeting? If you were in a building full of devices competing for Wi-Fi, spectrum congestion could be the culprit. If too many devices compete for bandwidth on the same wireless channel, everyone's Wi-Fi can slow down.

To alleviate spectrum congestion, and as part of a broader initiative at the University of Utah to stay at the forefront of wireless technologies, UIT is piloting Wi-Fi 6E — the best Wi-Fi standard currently available — in eight university buildings.

“If everything goes well with the pilot, Wi-Fi 6E will become the new model we propagate going forward,” said Curtis Larsen, principal wireless engineer for UIT’s Network Services team. UIT previously established 5GHz as baseline configuration for the UConnect wireless network at the university, which, according to Network Services, represents 87% of all network traffic at the U (UGuest and ULink have 5% utilization each, and eduroam receives about 3% of all network traffic).

The pilot program, which entails the installation of 507 wireless access points (APs), is underway for eight buildings. All newly constructed campus buildings will be configured for 6HGz Wi-Fi as well, according to Senior Network Engineer Brandon Callahan.

“Though we’re early into the conversion [from 5GHz to 6GHz], we want to make IT managers aware that 6GHz is the future, so they should stop purchasing older technology that doesn’t support the new standard,” Callahan said. “It’s time to start prioritizing and planning for the 6GHz realm because it’s going to be game-changing.”

Globally, there are more Wi-Fi devices today — roughly 20 billion — than there are human beings. It’s hard to remember a time when it didn’t exist, but the term Wi-Fi, aka wireless fidelity, is only a couple decades old, coined by the Wi-Fi Alliance in 1997 when the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) published its pioneering IEEE 802.11 network standard.

Wi-Fi 6, or 802.11ax, allows its 9.6 Gbit/s data rate to be split among various devices. The “E” in Wi-Fi 6E refers to an extension of the available frequencies used to transmit 6GHz signals.

Wireless signals are transmitted within specific spectrum ranges, as made available by law. The last three generations of wireless technology used two signal bands — 2.4GHz, long congested with interference from devices like baby monitors and microwaves, and 5GHz, currently overcrowded with legacy Wi-Fi devices and networks. When the Federal Communications Commission opened the 6GHz band for unlicensed use in 2020, it marked the biggest spectrum addition to Wi-Fi in decades.

“In terms of radio frequencies, 6GHz is one of the biggest changes in our lifetimes,” said Senior Network Engineer Dave Thomaz.

Think of it as going from a single-track bike lane (2.4GHz) to a highway (5GHz) to a superhighway (6GHz). Sticking with the analogy, if 6GHz is a superhighway, its channels are lanes.

“The wider the lane, the faster the speed, and therefore greater support for more Wi-Fi users at once, especially in congested environments,” Thomaz said.

Wi-Fi 6E, Curtis said, supports faster wireless speeds, lower latencies, and high-bandwidth applications for 4K or 8K video streaming, videoconferencing, and voice calls. Thomaz said the uncluttered spectrum will be most impactful in high-density spaces like large classrooms, buildings that host conferences, and busy environments like the new Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine.

Wi-Fi 6E also aligns with two of the Wi-Fi Alliance's latest standards — opportunistic wireless encryption (OWE) and Wi-Fi protected access 3 (WPA-3).

With OWE, Wi-Fi connections are automatically encrypted between the wireless device and access point, reducing the threat of passive “eavesdropping” by malicious hackers. WPA-3, meanwhile, is the latest in a series of security protocols designed to safeguard Wi-Fi traffic. There’s a whitepaper’s worth of technical differences between WPA-2 and WPA-3 — the upshot is that WPA-3 provides stronger security protocols and cryptography mechanisms that protect the data exchange between the user and the access point. Another security requirement established with Wi-Fi 6E, Thomaz explained, is management frame protection (MFP), a wireless feature that tightens security around messages passed between wireless devices and combats malicious exploits that include denial of service (DoS), radiofrequency (RF) jammer, evil twin router, and offline dictionary attacks.

Cisco Catalyst 9166 APs, the newly installed hardware that supports Wi-Fi 6E at the U, have RF characteristics similar to the 12,500 existing APs that support 5GHz, Thomaz said, making them easy for IT staff to operate and maintain. The new generation of APs boast a host of cutting-edge features, including flexible on-premises or cloud-based management through the Cisco Meraki dashboard and online monitoring via Cisco Catalyst Center appliance; built-in environmental sensors that measure air quality, temperature, and humidity; Internet of Things (IoT) radios; and an internal directional antenna designed for open spaces with high ceilings like auditoriums.

If a 6GHz configuration is authorized university-wide after the pilot concludes, the migration is expected to take place gradually, coinciding with hardware life cycle replacement schedules and contingent on funding and wireless use patterns and priorities, Callahan said. Phase one of the 6GHz initiative involves the pilot program and lab testing. The second phase, if approved, will integrate UGuest, ULink, and eduroam networks into the 6GHz environment at a date to be determined.

Broad support for 6GHz across multiple clients

~ Source: Cisco

 

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