The Wireless Broadband Alliance is boasting an indoor field trial from CableLabs and Intel that successfully showed Wi-Fi 6E devices using the 6 GHz band could deliver coverage and fast speeds for applications at home.
Countries like the U.S., South Korea and others have opened up the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use such as Wi-Fi. It brings new capacity for a range of users and sits nearby the 5 GHz band that’s already widely tapped for Wi-Fi.
The recent trial used laptops with WBA member Intel’s Wi-Fi 6E wireless cards and a Wi-Fi 6E enabled access point from Asus. The Wi-Fi Alliance put in place the Wi-Fi 6E designation for Wi-Fi 6 products that support the 6 GHz band.
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Since the 6 GHz band is higher frequency range than 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz typically used for Wi-Fi, signals have more of a challenge with obstruction and WBA pointed out that the trial was performed in a house with a basement and typical building materials like drywall and wood. The Wi-Fi 6E laptops were placed throughout the 3,600-square-foot, two-story residential suburban home and tests focused on uplink and downlink.
Using 160-megahertz channels in 6 GHz on Wi-Fi 6E results delivered 1.7 Gbps downlink and 1.2 Gbps uplink in locations close to the access point. According to WBA, the larger channel bandwidth from 6 GHz and an associated increase in total EIRP transmit power helped maximize both coverage and speed throughout the home.
Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of WBA, in a statement said the test showed how Wi-Fi 6E and the 6 GHz band could maximize performance and experience in the demanding real-world environment of people’s houses.
“Between HD and 4K streaming video, multiplayer gaming, dozens of smart home devices and videoconferencing for remote work, today’s home Wi-Fi networks are the foundation for how people live, work and play,” Rodrigues continued. “This trial highlights that Wi-Fi 6E is more than capable of shouldering that load, especially when paired with 6 GHz spectrum.”
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CableLabs lead architect of wireless access technology Lili Hervieu highlighted that the organization has been a proponent of freeing up 6 GHz for unlicensed and said the test was performed in a CableLab employee’s house.
“The results confirmed the benefit of Wi-Fi 6E for increased capacity and data rate that will support the growing demand we are seeing for a large variety of applications and for new emerging technologies,” Hervieu continued.
WBA started its first phase of Wi-Fi 6E trials back in March 2020, before the 6 GHz band was authorized for unlicensed use in in the U.S, using mobile platforms and laptop equipment enabled by members Broadcom and Intel. Enterprise trials in San Jose, California reached speeds of 2 Gbps, as the industry group aimed to show how opening the 6 GHz band could help remove pain points for many Wi-Fi networks that were highly congested.
At the time WBA said next phases would involve trials on subway transportation systems and in-home testing with CableLabs, SK Telecom and Transit Wireless.
WBA estimates that more than 338 million Wi-Fi 6E devices will enter the global market this year and that nearly 20% of all Wi-Fi 6 device shipments will support 6 GHz by 2022, according to an annual industry report released in October.
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Just this week WBA and CableLabs subsidiary Kyrio each submitted applications to the Federal Communications Commission to operate Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) systems for the 6 GHz band. In the U.S., AFC systems will enable outdoor and higher power operations, including Wi-Fi, 5G unlicensed (NR-U) and more, using 6 GHz spectrum while protecting incumbent users.
Low-power indoor Wi-Fi 6E – like demonstrated in the recent trial – are already possible since the FCC freed up 1,200 MHz in the band last year.