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

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#81

Post by xur17 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:09 AM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #44

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…

THIS. I've got good LTE signal in my neighborhood, and managed to convince AT&T's retention team to grant me 50GB/mo (whether or not I choose to tether my laptop, none of this "unlimited with tiny cap for hotspot usage" nonsense) ... I digress. I tend to turn my phone's wifi OFF, even when nominally in range of a trusted AP, to ensure a reliable connection. I'll take a steady 4-5 MBps over fragile and on-again/off-ag…

I would love to have a multipath vpn on my phone - prefer wifi on connection, but automatically fall back to lte when responses take too long to arrive.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#82

Post by femto » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:44 AM UTC

Cunning. Why have 5G, when you can have Wi-Fi 6?

I'd posit that this renaming is part of the ongoing competition between Wi-Fi and LTE, and prompted by the advent of 5G?

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#83

Post by olalonde » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 12:57 AM UTC

xur17 wrote: post #81

chrisweekly wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS. I've got good LTE signal in my neighborhood, and managed to convince AT&T's retention team to grant me 50GB/mo (whether or not I choose to tether my laptop, none of this "unlimited with tiny cap for hotspot usage" nonsense) ... I digress. I tend to turn my phone's wifi OFF, even when nominally in range of a trusted AP, to ensure a reliable connection. I'll take a steady 4-5 MBps over fragile and on-again/off-ag…

I would love to have a multipath vpn on my phone - prefer wifi on connection, but automatically fall back to lte when responses take too long to arrive.

I recently updated my phone (MIUI/Android) and it does fall back to LTE when it can't reach the Internet through Wifi.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#84

Post by HankB99 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #55

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

I was looking for an opportunity to say something similar. I didn't realize there was that much prior art!

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#85

Post by sargun » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:14 AM UTC

It’s kinda a bummer to see 802.11ad being ignored. I use 802.11ad for game streaming in my house, and it’s great.

It’s also great for the “access point per room” story, if there was a mechanism to have cheaper APs and do hand off.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#86

Post by ezoe » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

I like new numbering system which allows me to quickly deduce the generation of standards. No more a/b/g/n/a-something.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#87

Post by xur17 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 2:31 AM UTC

olalonde wrote: post #83

xur17 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to have a multipath vpn on my phone - prefer wifi on connection, but automatically fall back to lte when responses take too long to arrive.

I recently updated my phone (MIUI/Android) and it does fall back to LTE when it can't reach the Internet through Wifi.

Mine does that as well, but it has to re-establish all connections whenever this occurs. If a webpage is in the middle of loading, it restarts, video stream stutters, it's not even close to seamless.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#88

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 3:37 AM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #49

colanderman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, I would expect 802.11-1997 to be 1. Is that 0? Or does it share a number with b, because they're the same technology? Or is it 1, and a and g share a number because they're the same technology? Or do a and b share a number because they were released simultaneously? (This is, of course, a Very Important Question.)

I think 802.11-1997 works as 0 in this case. The implication from the Wi-Fi Alliance seems to be they are counting consumer hardware generations, and there doesn't seem to have been much consumer hardware that was directly 802.11-1997 (it took b to get consumer adoption). Which is why the order I've heard that makes the most sense is 1 (b), 2 (a), 3 (g), because that was roughly the consumer hardwave waves, with the…

a and b were specced at the same time though, so it's really weird to look at a+b+g as anything other than two generations.

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#89

Post by hornetblack » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 3:41 AM 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.

It's been posted here multiple times: https://cafbit.com/post/rapid_dhcp_or_how_do/

Re: Wi-Fi Alliance introduces Wi-Fi 6

#90

Post by rsynnott » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 3:48 AM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #61

ricardobeat wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

That's just the marketing, AC would have been 7 gbit/s if measured in the same ludicrous 8x8 160 MHz setup (though technically AC only specifies up to 4x4 it doesn't matter, clients are almost exclusively 2x2, even high end laptops). Even in a full greenfield ax deployment it'll be a rare sight to see your phy rate pop above 1 gbit/s half duplex as a client. Like the parent comment said the actual felt speed gains in…

MacBook Pros have had 3x3 for a while now (except for the non-touchbar 13” post-2016, which is really more of a MacBook Air internally anyway).