Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6 • Hacker News Board

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#51

Post by ahartmetz » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 6:52 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #41

jessriedel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect for most WiFi users, the overwhelming need is more reliable and fast establishment of connection. I waste vastly more time trying to deal with flaky connections, reconnection after wake from sleep, and network priority issues than I do waiting in the rare cases the WiFi is limiting thd data transfer rate (rather than the wired connection). The timescales involved in making Wifi connections should be ms or l…

I've found Macs to be vastly better at this than my Linux/windows laptops, for some reason, to the point where I almost never wait for them to connect. Might just be some aggressive workarounds they've implemented, though.

I've seen Connman connect in under a second IIRC, on am embedded system. Proper PCs usually use wpa_supplicant, NetworkManager and some DHCP client, none of which are very fast.

Connman doesn't seem to handle all possible situations like NetworkManager, though, and its developers only seem to do (or approve patches for) whatever Intel management tells them to do.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#52

Post by zaroth » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #46

Really good whitepaper on WiFi 6 (802.11ax): https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wirele... Also: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/53150/en/ Main differences with 802.11ac: - denser subcarriers (or "tones") spacing; they are spaced by 78.125 kHz instead of 312.5 kHz, for example a 80 MHz channel now allows 980 data subcarriers, up from 234. That's a 4.19× improvement (4× higher density doesn't translate…

Great information! I wonder how the subcarrier allotments are orchestrated, particularly under hidden neighbor conditions. Presumably the AP has to orchestrate it based on QoS settings, but the client-OS will need upgrades throughout the stack to signal how much bandwidth should be allotted/reserved at different times.

Sounds complicated and tricky, and not likely to work very well for devices where bandwidth requirements are extremely bursty and unpredictable.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#53

Post by ricardobeat » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:25 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #46

Really good whitepaper on WiFi 6 (802.11ax): https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/wirele... Also: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/53150/en/ Main differences with 802.11ac: - denser subcarriers (or "tones") spacing; they are spaced by 78.125 kHz instead of 312.5 kHz, for example a 80 MHz channel now allows 980 data subcarriers, up from 234. That's a 4.19× improvement (4× higher density doesn't translate…

Due to the increased efficiency, the speed increase is supposed to be much higher. At CES they showed up to 11Gbits: https://www.zdnet.com/article/d-link-asus-tout-802-11ax-wi-f...

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#54

Post by garmaine » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:29 PM UTC

DiabloD3 wrote: post #30

garmaine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WiMax?

WiMax is an LTE alternative designed by an IEEE 802 committee. It is designed for last mile delivery and also meets the requirements to be considered a 4G and 5G protocol. Although technically superior to LTE, phone companies (outside of Sprint, in the US at least) chose not to deploy it as it was not based on existing protocols (GSM and CDMA), even though that isn't an actual legitimate reason, as "true" LTE require…

My point was the asked for standard already exists.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#55

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:32 PM UTC

joemi wrote: post #25

FINALLY. Confusing version numbering always annoys me, and wifi's "n", "ac", "g", etc version names (combined with the easy to get wrong "802.11") have been one of the biggest offenders for a while. When a version number is a marketable metric, it should not be confusing. Others notable offenders that jump to mind: the Xbox range (Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One X), iPhone SE and XR (since they break the pattern a…

Maybe there's someone with a sense of humor there and Wifi 9 will be skipped as a dig at both Microsoft and Apple.

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10

iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone X

Wifi 6, Wifi 7, Wifi 8, Wifi Ten

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#56

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #41

jessriedel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect for most WiFi users, the overwhelming need is more reliable and fast establishment of connection. I waste vastly more time trying to deal with flaky connections, reconnection after wake from sleep, and network priority issues than I do waiting in the rare cases the WiFi is limiting thd data transfer rate (rather than the wired connection). The timescales involved in making Wifi connections should be ms or l…

I've found Macs to be vastly better at this than my Linux/windows laptops, for some reason, to the point where I almost never wait for them to connect. Might just be some aggressive workarounds they've implemented, though.

IME, Macs connect faster when the signal is strong. But on a weaker link, it takes just as long as my Windows and Linux machines.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#57

Post by reaperducer » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

DiabloD3 wrote: post #30

garmaine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WiMax?

WiMax is an LTE alternative designed by an IEEE 802 committee. It is designed for last mile delivery and also meets the requirements to be considered a 4G and 5G protocol. Although technically superior to LTE, phone companies (outside of Sprint, in the US at least) chose not to deploy it as it was not based on existing protocols (GSM and CDMA), even though that isn't an actual legitimate reason, as "true" LTE require…

I had WiMax via Clearwire in both Seattle and Chicago.

When it worked, it was phenomenal. But it needed a nearly line-of-sight connection, and seemed to have problems in rain and fog.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#58

Post by derefr » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:40 PM UTC

chipperyman573 wrote: post #45

Gaelan wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ac is later and presumably better. No idea if there are any trade offs

AC only supports 5gz, which has significantly worse range and is impacted much more by walls or other solid objects. But if there aren't a problem it's generally better

Those limitations are a good thing: they reduce interference from neighbouring apartments/offices, and even interference between overlapping cells of a mesh network or a base station and its extenders. In practice, this means that the extenders can extend longer, so something like a convention center or work-sharing space can use approximately the same number of base stations it did before.

The only problem is that your phone might not be able to talk to your router through your bathroom wall any more. But that capability was always a sign of wi-fi being too noisy—imagine a light that can manage to penetrate a bathroom wall, and tell me you don’t think it’s maybe a bit too powerful for consumer use ;)

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#59

Post by all_blue_chucks » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:46 PM UTC

kevin_b_er wrote: post #3

Wi-Fi Alliance is naming the not-yet-complete IEEE 802.11ax standard as Wi-Fi 6, with ac being 5, and n being 4. One can guess then a is supposed to 1, b as 2, and g as 3, but this isn't mentioned anywhere I can see. As far as I can tell, all of these numbers are new. At least this naming is a good deal clearer than HDMI's confusing version and feature mix or USB's Speed names. What isn't clear is how much control th…

Does that make the original 802.11 "Wi-Fi 0"?

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#60

Post by chipperyman573 » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

mrb wrote: post #50

chipperyman573 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AC only supports 5gz, which has significantly worse range and is impacted much more by walls or other solid objects. But if there aren't a problem it's generally better

"AC only supports 5gz." That's not an accurate statement. "802.11ac" denotes a set of features, and many of them apply to and benefit the 2.4 GHz band. For example 256QAM encoding boosts the max data rate by 20 or 33% on this band for, respectively, 20 and 40 MHz channels.

Interesting. How come all the consumer routers I've used have always required 5ghz to use AC capabilities? Are the rest of the ac features enterprisey? Or have I just not interacted with enough routers to see these?