How long until you upgrade to WiFi 6?

[TheHyperTechie]

Hi Everyone,

 

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are regarding Wi-Fi 6. Those of you still on Wi-Fi 5, how long are you waiting before you make the upgrade and why?

 

TIA

[DrCheese]

We mainly have (55+) Unifi NanoHD points (WiFi 5)

We've upgraded these to WiFi 6 in key areas (P16/assembly/admin and so on) but don't intend to replace the rest with Wifi 6 devices.

 

Main reasoning is - Wifi 6 on it's own isn't a massive upgrade over 5.

6E is (Our staff laptops support that) & with WiFi 7 also supporting Wifi 6E (& Multi link bonding) we've decided to skip 6 in general and go straight to 7.

 

We've got a few Unifi 7 points on order for testing & will go from there.

[Cat_Jam148]

The Connect the Classroom project made the decision for us. We were meant to be all done by now but due to equipment delays, we're still running on our WiFi 5 UniFi system.

 

Once it's in we will be WiFi 6 across the board, nearly all of our devices fully support it and WPA3 so be interesting to see what difference it makes, if any!

[RobFuller]

I would be looking at vendors WiFi 7 offerings which should be hitting the market now.

[LeMarchand]

Hi Everyone,

 

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are regarding Wi-Fi 6. Those of you still on Wi-Fi 5, how long are you waiting before you make the upgrade and why?

 

TIA

 

I'd love to be able to refresh our wireless points. My various SMT teams don't like to spend money until something breaks.

[TheHyperTechie]

We mainly have (55+) Unifi NanoHD points (WiFi 5)

We've upgraded these to WiFi 6 in key areas (P16/assembly/admin and so on) but don't intend to replace the rest with Wifi 6 devices.

 

Main reasoning is - Wifi 6 on it's own isn't a massive upgrade over 5.

6E is (Our staff laptops support that) & with WiFi 7 also supporting Wifi 6E (& Multi link bonding) we've decided to skip 6 in general and go straight to 7.

 

We've got a few Unifi 7 points on order for testing & will go from there.

 

A similar situation to yourself. We have about 20 UniFi NanoHD access points. Which, are performing absolutely fine. However these were only installed a couple of years ago by a previous network manager. I have been tasked with creating a 3 year IT plan including possible upgrades. Wi-Fi 6 is at the top of the list, I just hope they understand and consider the benefits compared to the current system.

[TheHyperTechie]

The Connect the Classroom project made the decision for us. We were meant to be all done by now but due to equipment delays, we're still running on our WiFi 5 UniFi system.

 

Once it's in we will be WiFi 6 across the board, nearly all of our devices fully support it and WPA3 so be interesting to see what difference it makes, if any!

 

Yeah, one of my schools qualified for this. With the funding I was able to upgrade their switches to enterprise models, along with their access points (all UniFi). It's a shame my other school didn't qualify for it due to their area/location.

[CHiLL]

Is there any point in upgrading from WiFi 5 until you replace each APs network connection with 2.5Gb or greater (which includes replacement/additional switches)?

[Net-Ctrl]

It's a question we often hear - and there's no easy answer. Certainly not one that fits all anyway.

 

If you find yourself using Wi-Fi 5 - and considering what to do there are lots of factors:

 

Budgets cycles

Changes to device count (BYOD, 1-to-1 schemes etc)

Service complaints

Infrastructure

 

If you find that you don't meet any of the above and the Wi-Fi is still supported or in a valid warranty period then it may make sense to stick with what you have and focus investment elsewhere.

 

With Wi-Fi right now you have three generations available - Wi-Fi 6, 6E and 7. Wi-Fi 6E is Wi-Fi 6 with the additional 6Ghz radio. Wi-Fi 7 is new to market and typically vendors lead with high-end APs which comes with an equally high price point. It is also worth noting that Wi-Fi 7 is not yet ratified. This means requirements could change and APs currently labelled as WI-FI 7 will fall short of the standards and the classification of the AP downgraded. This has happened before.

 

Wi-Fi 7 will come in dual radio (2.4 and 5Ghz) and tri-radio (2.4, 5 and 6Ghz) AP optoins. Wi-Fi 7 will bring performance upgrades across all spectrums. However, with ratification not yet complete, and mid level APs not likely to hit the market until later this year/next year - it's a bit of waiting game for that wider portfolio of APs.

 

If time is on your side - wait for Wi-Fi 7. A lot of the time we don't have that luxury - and an upgrade is needed earlier. Like buying a car - you know a newer model is down the line - but time means you need to go with what's available now. With Wi-Fi that would leave Wi-Fi 6 or 6E.

 

Wi-Fi 6E offers the future-proof of 6Ghz but at a cost. The 6E APs are likely to need PoE++ (.bt) for full functionality, whereas as Wi-Fi 6 will run at PoE. 6Ghz also doesn't travel well with higher attenuation that 5Ghz. This means if your APs are in corridors that 6Ghz goodness is likely to be wasted. Depending on the state of your network, it may be that Wi-Fi 6 is the better option if you "need" to upgrade. If users are happy, that investment might be better spent looking at a network upgrade to prepare yourself for that future Wi-Fi upgrade path.

 

Each site we speak to is different. Different pressures, circumstances, budgets and more. I would say if you find yourself using Wi-Fi 5 and asking yourself that question "what should I do" engage with your Wi-Fi/network partner and start to put a plan in place and cover all options. If you don't have a preferred partner or are self managed then asking yourself some of the questions above might help - alternatively - we're here to talk through options in a consultative manor.

[DrCheese]

A similar situation to yourself. We have about 20 UniFi NanoHD access points. Which, are performing absolutely fine. However these were only installed a couple of years ago by a previous network manager. I have been tasked with creating a 3 year IT plan including possible upgrades. Wi-Fi 6 is at the top of the list, I just hope they understand and consider the benefits compared to the current system.

 

Part of the reason I like the UniFi wifi is that you can phase in new generations at your own pace - Our old Aruba system we would have had to have junked the whole (hardware) controller to support Wifi 5 & trashed all our access points at the same time which made it completely unaffordable.

 

Is there any point in upgrading from WiFi 5 until you replace each APs network connection with 2.5Gb or greater (which includes replacement/additional switches)?

 

Yes and no - There are quality-of-life improvements that each generation provides that don't need faster link speeds. 6E gives you the 6ghz spectrum to play with. Wifi 7 adds MLO (Multi Link operation) which allows devices to connect to all bands at once, rather than roaming between 2.4/5 & 6.

[TheHyperTechie]

It's a question we often hear - and there's no easy answer. Certainly not one that fits all anyway.

 

If you find yourself using Wi-Fi 5 - and considering what to do there are lots of factors:

 

Budgets cycles

Changes to device count (BYOD, 1-to-1 schemes etc)

Service complaints

Infrastructure

 

If you find that you don't meet any of the above and the Wi-Fi is still supported or in a valid warranty period then it may make sense to stick with what you have and focus investment elsewhere.

 

With Wi-Fi right now you have three generations available - Wi-Fi 6, 6E and 7. Wi-Fi 6E is Wi-Fi 6 with the additional 6Ghz radio. Wi-Fi 7 is new to market and typically vendors lead with high-end APs which comes with an equally high price point. It is also worth noting that Wi-Fi 7 is not yet ratified. This means requirements could change and APs currently labelled as WI-FI 7 will fall short of the standards and the classification of the AP downgraded. This has happened before.

 

Wi-Fi 7 will come in dual radio (2.4 and 5Ghz) and tri-radio (2.4, 5 and 6Ghz) AP optoins. Wi-Fi 7 will bring performance upgrades across all spectrums. However, with ratification not yet complete, and mid level APs not likely to hit the market until later this year/next year - it's a bit of waiting game for that wider portfolio of APs.

 

If time is on your side - wait for Wi-Fi 7. A lot of the time we don't have that luxury - and an upgrade is needed earlier. Like buying a car - you know a newer model is down the line - but time means you need to go with what's available now. With Wi-Fi that would leave Wi-Fi 6 or 6E.

 

Wi-Fi 6E offers the future-proof of 6Ghz but at a cost. The 6E APs are likely to need PoE++ (.bt) for full functionality, whereas as Wi-Fi 6 will run at PoE. 6Ghz also doesn't travel well with higher attenuation that 5Ghz. This means if your APs are in corridors that 6Ghz goodness is likely to be wasted. Depending on the state of your network, it may be that Wi-Fi 6 is the better option if you "need" to upgrade. If users are happy, that investment might be better spent looking at a network upgrade to prepare yourself for that future Wi-Fi upgrade path.

 

Each site we speak to is different. Different pressures, circumstances, budgets and more. I would say if you find yourself using Wi-Fi 5 and asking yourself that question "what should I do" engage with your Wi-Fi/network partner and start to put a plan in place and cover all options. If you don't have a preferred partner or are self managed then asking yourself some of the questions above might help - alternatively - we're here to talk through options in a consultative manor.

 

I think the second point you made is the main reason I am considering it.

 

Everything is wireless these days. Desktops are scarce and if we do have them, they use the wireless anyway.

 

We have about 350 Chromebooks used daily, I guess it is just my way of future proofing the school for a while. I think the best option might be to wait for a while and invest in Wi-Fi 7.

[CHiLL]

Part of the reason I like the UniFi wifi is that you can phase in new generations at your own pace - Our old Aruba system we would have had to have junked the whole (hardware) controller to support Wifi 5 & trashed all our access points at the same time which made it completely unaffordable.

 

 

 

Yes and no - There are quality-of-life improvements that each generation provides that don't need faster link speeds. 6E gives you the 6ghz spectrum to play with. Wifi 7 adds MLO (Multi Link operation) which allows devices to connect to all bands at once, rather than roaming between 2.4/5 & 6.

Maybe my understanding is wrong and I get all that MLO stuff, which is great if you're communicating with something else immediately directly connected to that AP. But as soon as your clients want to pull data from elsewhere on the network, they're all traversing that 1Gb link and bottlenecking. Is a 1Gb link enough for multiple clients on an increasing network and cloud based storage?

[FN-GM]

Is there any point in upgrading from WiFi 5 until you replace each APs network connection with 2.5Gb or greater (which includes replacement/additional switches)?

 

Yes - because you're capped at 300 meg ish for WIFI 5 - WIFI 7 you could reach a gig.

[DrCheese]

Maybe my understanding is wrong and I get all that MLO stuff, which is great if you're communicating with something else immediately directly connected to that AP. But as soon as your clients want to pull data from elsewhere on the network, they're all traversing that 1Gb link and bottlenecking. Is a 1Gb link enough for multiple clients on an increasing network and cloud based storage?

 

I'm more referring to the reliability of the connection than the speed. But with Wifi 5 you're limited to around 300mbps & even on 6 it's rare you'll hit full on 1gbps even if you're the only client on.

[mthomas08]

Hi Everyone,

 

Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are regarding Wi-Fi 6. Those of you still on Wi-Fi 5, how long are you waiting before you make the upgrade and why?

 

TIA

 

On our list to look at but right now it isn't a priority. I think give it a few more years and we will consider replacing our site wide Wi-Fi.

 

We still stick to desktops and cables - they work and I can't see the production of PCs magically vanishing anytime soon.

 

As a school we are now discouraging personal devices for safeguarding a security and sticking to school owned ones (wasn't my idea - it was DSL). Kids are already banned from using phones.

 

Most of our site is covered with cabling and still resort to laptops for certain depts like PE - due to registers in areas with no cabling. Our official stance is not to provide laptops due to the costs. Most of our equipment isn't wireless and the extras certainly aren't (printers/boilers/catering).

 

So this certainly puts WiFi 6 on a low priority right now - even though the gov standards says we should be meeting this standard.

Edited February 8, 2024 by mthomas08

[dmj]

Wifi 7 support really only landed in the linux kernel in september 2023. It's going to take vendors a while to build this in.

Even OpenWRT (which many wifi routers base their images from) is only beginning to support it in dev builds.

If you want to get ahead of the game on this you'll need to build your own AP's and manage them with openwisp.

[CHiLL]

Yes - because you're capped at 300 meg ish for WIFI 5 - WIFI 7 you could reach a gig.

 

I'm more referring to the reliability of the connection than the speed. But with Wifi 5 you're limited to around 300mbps & even on 6 it's rare you'll hit full on 1gbps even if you're the only client on.

But is that a per client connection limit or multiple clients? If I have a WiFi 7 AP and 20x WiFi 7 laptops, pulling files from the network - surely a 1Gb uplink is going to become the biggest bottleneck and it'll perform no different than the same 20x laptops connecting to a WiFi 5 AP with the same 1Gb uplink?

[dmj]

But is that a per client connection limit or multiple clients? If I have a WiFi 7 AP and 20x WiFi 7 laptops, pulling files from the network - surely a 1Gb uplink is going to become the biggest bottleneck and it'll perform no different than the same 20x laptops connecting to a WiFi 5 AP with the same 1Gb uplink?

That's how I understood it, and why WIFI-7 boards have multiple 10GBE connectors: https://www.banana-pi.org/en/bananapi-router/155.html

[psydii]

Some wireless professionals used to do bake-offs between vendor kit using dozens/hundreds of clients and a handful of aps. These always showed traffic throughput tending to 1Mb/s once the channel gets busy servicing more than a handful of clients simultaneously.

 

*However* most of the time devices are not all trying to throw hundreds of megabytes around at the same time, so the increased capacity on a channel through the later technological developments (beamforming and SU-MIMO, MU-MIMO, very High QAM, Color etc) should/might make a huge difference moment by moment, thus modern wifi might not ever feel slow, even though under stress it probably collapses as it has ever done.

 

I have done a bake off with wave2 ac - not to the standard I could publish it (if i could even still find the data) - the most significant improvement was 4x4 vs 2x2 - we could see 4x4 APs (well, their cli reported that they were) servicing multiple 1x1 and 2x2 clients simultaneously, while the 2x2 APs were not able to. This was reflected in the 4x4 throughput under load (120 clients / 3 APs / 6 rooms) - still down at less than 5Mb/s but better than the 1-2Mb/s of the 2x2 kit under heavy load.

 

Extrapolating (even less scientifically than my bake-off) I would make the prediction that with a well designed RF environment and Wifi 7 you might see three to four times the OVERALL throughput underload - and that would still only be 15-20Mb/s. Lightly loaded you might get closer to 1Gb/s on any given client at the moment - but I've not seen Google Drive, or Onedrive/Sharepoint ever serve/accept files at even close to that speed so I'm not sure (for those who *might* be able to afford it) spending money recableing and upgrading switches to 2.5G /10G for modern APs is worth it. Obviously if you are getting external funding take the best you can, we're still riding on the CAT6/OM3/10Gb backbone brought in from BSF 15 years ago.

 

But I find the lack of comparative hard data on modern wifi kit quite telling.

 

To return to the original question though: I like core infrastructure to be supported and our APs fall out of support in a couple of years - its on our roadmap the Finance Director financial projections include its replacement.

[FN-GM]

surely a 1Gb uplink is going to become the biggest bottleneck and it'll perform no different than the same 20x laptops connecting to a WiFi 5 AP with the same 1Gb uplink?

 

You would have the same issue if the uplink was 2.5Gb. You will get this with WIFI 5 as well. I bet people here have 48 port gig switches with a 1Gb uplink. Same applies to a switch with 24 1GB ports with a 10GB uplink. QOS etc should always be used regardless of the deployment to prevent the link become saturated.

[msi_school]

I believe the biggest issues for high throughput on an AP are congestion and distance between the AP and the device, which means you are generally looking to increase the AP density before the wired up link from the AP becomes an issue. 48 of any device type squeezing through a 1Gb uplink let alone 48 APs will be an issue however, my biggest bottle neck with the cloud is the providers up/download speed.

[chazzy2501]

we are on wifi5, most devices are 2x2 and connect at around 400Mbps. In a busy area a device will speedtest.net at around 230Mbps. I don't yet see a need to upgrade until the hardware is unsupported. (unifi nano / ac wave2)

[ITGuyNW]

We updated to a Cambium Wifi 6 system last year. They only run on the 1gb uplinks at the moment so when we do the network upgrade, may look at using the 2.5gb ports instead to squeeze out more worth

[Olliedawg]

Still wifi 5 here. UAP-AC-PRO's with the unifi controller installed on a VM. I dont see a need to change this anytime soon. 1 gig uplinks on all of our switches

[Jcx500]

Already done , on Aruba Ap’s and controllers