Can Wi-Fi survive the 5G era

Whether it is watching videos, playing games, or controlling smart home devices, we can hardly live without Wi-Fi in our lives. Everyone takes out their mobile phones and will immediately think of connecting to Wi-Fi, but the current Wi-Fi also exists The shortcomings of small coverage and weak wall penetration ability, especially when used at home, if the router is placed in the living room, the bedroom may be disconnected from the network, and if more smart devices are connected, it may not be able to support, so many users now worry about smart home Due to the connection problem of the system, it is expected that the Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11ax standard launched by Qorvo next year may be able to meet the requirements of wireless connection data traffic.

Distributed Wi-Fi can solve the problem of capacity demand

Early Wi-Fi versions can achieve higher data rates, but reliability and interference problems still exist. Later, the Wi-Fi industry adopted multiple technologies such as repeaters or power line extenders to try to overcome these problems, but It is difficult to achieve reliable range, high-speed data rate, and no interference at the same time. Cees Links, known as the father of Wi-Fi, introduced us to distributed Wi-Fi technology, “using the repeater itself will exacerbate the interference problem and cause a bad user experience, even if it does expand to a minimum Wi-Fi coverage. On the contrary, we believe that distributed Wi-Fi or Pod in Every Room can better achieve network coverage of the entire residence. That is, a pod is used as a wireless access point in each room of the residence. The pod is connected to the router, and the router is connected to the Internet. "

Who will support these pods? IEEE 802.11ax will solve the problem of capacity requirements, while increasing the efficiency of bandwidth usage, thereby increasing data rates, supporting these pods, and creating worry-free connections, providing smart homes with more efficient distributed Wi-Fi Fi indoor infrastructure.

More importantly, each pod is used as a wireless access point, and each access point supports Wi-Fi and IoT standards. This design does not require the use of additional gateways or the installation of multiple Ethernet / cables at home / Fiber access points to connect a grid system eliminate the need for Zigbee and Bluetooth grids. Meshless means extending the battery life of devices, simplifying setup and troubleshooting processes, and reducing user costs.

Advantages over traditional Wi-Fi

Have you noticed that the average home network bandwidth is only 100Mb / s, and the transmission rate of Wi-Fi can reach 1000Mb / s, which means that the speed of the network accessing the home itself limits the play of Wi-Fi, in order to solve this The problem is that operators are racing to increase the data rate of FTTH, DOCSIS3.1 and LTE / 5G network management. IEEE 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) will also increase the actual data throughput while focusing on increasing the capacity of the home.

Traditional Wi-Fi needs to switch SSID when connecting to the current 2G, 3G or 4G network, but Wi-Fi 6 is different. Cees Links pointed out, "This is our killer. If the routing is in the living room and there is a pod in each bedroom, then under this architecture, regardless of whether 2G, 3G or 4G is used in each room, it is used by users. Unique SSID to access the network of all rooms; in addition, if it is used in a building, you can choose the best channel to use, not limited to a certain channel. In the future, you only need to access a router, and the living room rooms are set up One pod can access all networks at home, and the transmission rate is higher. "

At present, multiple wireless standards coexist in the market. Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, and 4G are used on mobile phones. NB-IoT and LoRa are used in Internet of Things applications. Cees Links said, "The overall user tends to be simplified, we don't care which standard wins the market, but support these 6 standards."

Can Wi-Fi survive the 5G era?

According to our actual experience, Wi-Fi Internet access speed is faster than the mobile network. But recently, a company that specializes in wireless network coverage, "Open Signal", released a research report. The company surveyed the Internet speeds of more than 80 countries and regions. As a result, in 33 countries and regions, mobile network networks Faster than Wi-Fi. In Australia, Lebanon, Greece, Myanmar and other countries or regions, the network speed of the mobile operator's network is 10 to 13 Mbps higher than the average speed of Wi-Fi. Therefore, the Open Signal report stated: "Wi-Fi has no inherent advantages over mobile base stations in terms of network speed experience for smartphone users. Telecom operators, equipment manufacturers and consumers need to adjust their The understanding of Fi and mobile networks to adapt to the advancement of mobile Internet technology today and the upcoming 5G future. "

In the future 5G era, Wi-Fi will really be eliminated? Cees Links thinks no, his explanation is, "Everyone of us realizes that 5G is very important, but the application of Wi-Fi in life is 70% of the total This data and scale is twice that of 5G. If you need to achieve these connections through 5G, operators need to build more base stations and invest more costs. Therefore, I think Wi-Fi will exist for a long time in the future and will not be replaced by 5G. "

The author believes that there is another very important reason is the problem of tariffs. Although operators have launched unlimited data packages, but if they use international roaming abroad, they will feel uncomfortably expensive. If you choose a speed limit data package, there is no Wi-Fi In the case of -Fi, the network speed will return to before liberation. Therefore, I believe that Wi-Fi is still necessary and will not be completely replaced by 5G. It ’s just that Wi-Fi needs to enhance the transmission distance and the ability to pass through the wall, so that the number of pods can be reduced, or pods can be cancelled, because the more complex the system, the harder it is for users to maintain, but Cees Links said, “The future development trend of Wi-fi systems More and more complicated, in order to make people's lives more and more convenient, we will work together with all manufacturers to build more reliable products, so that users get a complete set of boxes when buying, instead of a product, end users It will be easy to use. "