Wi-Fi Alliance launches Wi-Fi 6 certification

The Wi-Fi Alliance has officially launched the Wi-Fi 6 certification programme just under a year after the standard was unveiled, promising a range of new features and capabilities designed to create more efficient overall Wi-Fi network performance, above all in crowded areas. The Wi-Fi 6 standard provides significant capacity, performance and latency improvements to the entire Wi-Fi ecosystem, notably in challenging environments with many connected devices such as stadiums, airports and industrial parks. 

Advanced capabilities supported by Wi-Fi 6 include uplink and downlink orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA), multi-user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO), transmit beamforming, 1024 quadrature amplitude modulation mode (1024-QAM), 160 MHz channels to increase bandwidth and target wake time (TWT) to significantly improve battery life in Wi-Fi devices. Wi-Fi 6 also delivers advanced security protocols and requires the latest generation of Wi-Fi security, Wi-Fi certified WPA3, said the industry body. 

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 will be the first smartphone officially certified for the new standard although the recently-introduced iPhone 11 and 11 Pro both support Wi-Fi 6. Ruckus Networks announced that its R750 indoor Wi-Fi access point for high-density networks also is among the first products to be certified for Wi-Fi 6. 

Several chipmakers also participated in the certification test programme and products certified include the Broadcom BCM4375, BCM43698 and BCM43684; the Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) AX200 for PCs and WAV600 Series chipset for routers and gateways; the Marvell 88W9064 (4x4) Wi-Fi 6 Dual-Band STA and 88W9064 (4x4) + 88W9068 (8x8) Wi-Fi 6 AP; and the Qualcomm Networking Pro 1200 Platform and FastConnect 6800 Wi-Fi 6 Mobile Connectivity Subsystem.