Wi-Fi now has version numbers, and Wi-Fi 6 comes out next year

[Arthur]

Source: Wi-Fi Alliance (via The Verge)

 

If you’ve ever bought a Wi-Fi router, you may have had to sort through specs that read like complete gibberish — like “802.11ac” or “a/b/g/n.” But going forward, Wi-Fi is adopting version numbers so that it’ll be easier to tell whether the router or device you’re buying is on the latest version.

 

In the past, Wi-Fi versions were identified by a letter or a pair of letters that referred to a wireless standard. The current version is 802.11ac, but before that, we had 802.11n, 802.11g, 802.11a, and 802.11b. It was not comprehensible, so the Wi-Fi Alliance — the group that stewards the implementation of Wi-Fi — is changing it.

 

All of those convoluted codenames are being changed. So instead of the current Wi-Fi being called 802.11ac, it’ll be called Wi-Fi 5 (because it’s the fifth version). It’ll probably make more sense this way, starting with the first version of Wi-Fi, 802.11b:

 

• Wi-Fi 1: 802.11b (1999)
  
• Wi-Fi 2: 802.11a (1999)
  
• Wi-Fi 3: 802.11g (2003)
  
• Wi-Fi 4: 802.11n (2009)
  
• Wi-Fi 5: 802.11ac (2014)
  

Now, instead of wondering whether “ac” is better than “n” or if the two versions even work together, you’ll just look at the number. Wi-Fi 5 is higher than Wi-Fi 4, so obviously it’s better. And since Wi-Fi networks have always worked together, it’s somewhat clearer that Wi-Fi 5 devices should be able to connect with Wi-Fi 4 devices, too. (Technically, Wi-Fi 1, Wi-Fi 2, and Wi-Fi 3 aren’t being branded because they aren’t widely in use, but I’ve labelled how it would look above for clarity).

 

The Wi-Fi Alliance even wants to see this branding go beyond hardware. So in the future when you connect to a Wi-Fi network on your phone or laptop, your device will tell you what Wi-Fi version you’re connected to. That way, if two networks are available — one showing “4” and the other showing “5” — you’d be able to choose the newer, faster option.

 

Now that the retroactive renaming is done, it’s time for the future. If you’ve been closely following router developments over the past year (no judgments here), you’ll know that the next generation of Wi-Fi is on the horizon, with the promise of faster speeds and better performance when handling a multitude of devices. It was supposed to be called 802.11ax, but now it’ll go by a simpler name: Wi-Fi 6.

 

The Wi-Fi Alliance says that it expects companies to adopt this numerical advertising in place of the classic lettered versions. It also expects to see earlier versions of Wi-Fi start to be referred to by their updated numbered names as well.

 

[mikeprice]

Good - the old/current system is confusing - should have been done years ago!

[snagrat]

Shouldn’t ac Wave 2 be its own number though? Making ax actually Wi-Fi 7?