In the modern home, the demands on the internet and wifi continue to grow. From work and school from home to streaming video, AR/VR, and smart home devices, customers require more bandwidth than ever before. It’s important for ISPs to take advantage of Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E to deliver the increasingly rich experiences that customers demand.

When Wi-Fi 6 was released, it represented a major leap forward in Wi-Fi technology. Compared to Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6 made faster speeds possible, reduced congestion, improved the battery life of connected devices, and enabled WPA-3 for better security.

Now, with the release of Wi-Fi 6E, we’re seeing yet another leap forward, giving ISPs access to more spectrum and roughly 10 Gbps of raw throughput so they can meet modern demands for amazing digital experiences. So, what is Wi-Fi 6E, how does it differ from previous generations of Wi-Fi—including Wi-Fi 6—and why should ISPs care? We’ll answer all those questions and more.

What is Wi-Fi 6E, and how is it different from Wi-Fi 6?
As its name suggests, Wi-Fi 6E is still Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax), including all of the great capabilities that Wi-Fi 6 introduced; however, it has one additional feature, and that feature happens to be quite significant. This additional feature—represented by the “E,” for extended—has to do with the frequency spectrum.

While Wi-Fi 6 supports the same 2.4 GHz and 5GHz bands as Wi-Fi 5, in the Americas, Wi-Fi 6E adds support for 1.2 GHz of spectrum across the 6 GHz band that was only recently made available for wifi use. Outside of the Americas, they have adopted 5925-6425 MHz—just 500 MHz of the full range. While the addition of a third frequency band may not seem substantial, it has the potential to create huge improvements in performance. Let’s explore this further.

Challenges with current Wi-Fi technology
From laptops, tablets, and smartphones to smart home, streaming, and gaming devices, the number of wifi-connected devices is on the rise. In spectrally noisy areas—areas with many wifi signals bouncing around, such as condo and apartment buildings, office buildings, and public venues—these devices are connecting to wifi access points (e.g., routers) that are competing for access to these channels. What does it mean to compete for access to channels?

When you set up a wifi router, your router will select the channel on which it will operate. A “channel” represents a particular range within the full wifi spectrum. The fewer channels there are, the more these channels will be shared by surrounding access points and the more interference there will be.

The introduction of the 5 GHz channels helped alleviate some of this congestion, adding 25 non-overlapping 20 MHz channels; however, in the 5 GHz spectrum, 20 MHz channels are rarely used. Instead, to improve speeds, 5 GHz routers combine multiple channels to create wider bands, often optimizing for 80 MHz or 160 MHz channels. Unfortunately, this additional speed comes at the expense of range. The use of these wider bands also means that the 5 GHz spectrum is really only adding 6-9 usable channels.

With the ubiquitous use of wifi, the 5 GHz band has also become congested and the networking industry, in concert with governments, started the process of obtaining another substantial block of spectrum for wifi to continue that growth. In November of last year, the FCC added an additional 75 MHz to UNII-4, most importantly making an additional 160 MHz channel available in the 5 GHz band.

How does Wi-Fi 6E help solve these challenges?
The addition of the 5 GHz spectrum provided a significant and much-needed increase in channels; however, as we add more and more wifi-enabled devices—and access points to help support these devices—there is a fast-growing need for more wifi capacity.

By adding access to the 6 GHz spectrum—ranging from 5.925 GHz to 7.125 GHz—Wi-Fi 6E provides 1200 MHz of usable space for new wifi channels. This can be divided into 59 20-MHz channels, 29 40-MHz, 14 80-MHz, or 7 160-MHz channels. As with 5 GHz, Wi-Fi 6E devices operating in the 6 GHz spectrum almost always optimize for 80-MHz or 160-MHz to maximize speed. All of these channels are available for indoor wifi use, and while there are some limitations for outdoor use—such as may be used at an outdoor venue—there are still many new channels available, a dramatic increase over the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrums.

In the Americas, applicable regulatory bodies have authorized wifi access to the full 1200 MHz spectrum available in 6 GHz; however, most other regions have not yet adopted the full 6 GHz spectrum. Outside the Americas, for example, they have only adopted 5925-6425 MHz—just 500 MHz of the full range. While significantly less than the full spectrum, it does still add 6 new 80-MHz channels, which is still an impactful increase. As regulations continue to evolve, it’s possible that these other regions will eventually adopt the full 6 GHz spectrum.

What’s the opportunity for ISPs?
ISPs have invested heavily in the infrastructure to deliver fast internet to homes, yet for many users in dense areas, congestion interferes with their ability to realize the full potential of their internet and wifi networks. By offering Wi-Fi 6E enabled networking equipment, ISPs can help deliver better performance to their customers with additional channels to optimize more connected devices and the opportunity to provide roughly 10 Gbps of raw throughput.

In addition to better performance, the introduction of the 6 GHz spectrum also mitigates interference by spreading out the user population across more spectrum to increase the average free air time. This will lead to fewer connectivity issues and less downtime, which will lead to fewer support calls for ISPs.

To help ISPs capitalize on this new and exciting development, eero is releasing the eero Pro 6E, our top-of-the-line router, which will help bring the power of Wi-Fi 6E and the 6 GHz spectrum to more homes. ISPs looking to offer Wi-Fi 6E to their customers today can work with eero to figure out options that best suit their needs and the needs of their customers.