Does your Wi-Fi feel slow, even though your primary Internet connection is fast? 802.11ax is here to save the day. The newest upgrade to Wi-Fi focuses on capacity as much as speed, solving the problem of overcrowded Wi-Fi networks where everyone's shouting over each other.
Wi-Fi overcrowding is especially problematic in dense urban or campus environments. Here at the PCMag offices, for instance, my phone can see at least 32 Wi-Fi networks. They're all trying to use the same set of channels, leading to collisions and slowdowns. While previous upgrades improved Wi-Fi speed, they haven't focused as much on capacity.
The next version of Wi-Fi, 802.11ax, focuses on improving capacity, speed, and battery life all together. If you're getting 10Mbps from your 100Mbps Internet connection, you'll want to switch over to 802.11ax as quickly as possible.
For more on Wi-Fi, see our explainer on What Is 802.11ac? from ExtremeTech.com.
Is 802.11ax Wi-Fi?
Yes, 802.11ax is the next version of Wi-Fi, and 802.11ax devices should be backward compatible with all existing Wi-Fi devices. You should absolutely get an 802.11ax device when they become available. There's a new version of Wi-Fi about every four or five years. 802.11a and b started in 1999, followed by g in 2003, n in 2009, and ac in 2013 (with another revision in 2015).
There are a lot of other standards starting with 802.11. For instance, 802.11ad is 'WiGig,' which has extremely high speeds but poor wall penetration. 802.11p is a special kind of Wi-Fi to allow moving cars to talk to each other. 802.11u describes a way to easily connect to public hotspots otherwise known as "Hotspot 2.0."
How Fast Is 802.11ax?
The peak speeds of routers using Qualcomm's IPQ8074 chip should be 4.8Gbps, and clients using Qualcomm's QCA6290 will go up to 1.8Gbps. The technology also promises lower latency and less packet loss, according to Qualcomm. This means better gaming performance, even if you don't have a very high bandwidth backhaul connection.
802.11ax will have 4x the capacity of previous Wi-Fi versions, with power consumption reduced by up to 2/3, according to Qualcomm.
How Does 802.11ax Work?
802.11ax improves performance with several major new technologies.
- Improved multi-user MIMO means routers can steer wireless beams directly at up to right users at a time, up from from with 802.11ac. They can also now do this with both uploads and downloads, not just uploads as in 802.11ac.
- OFDMA means rather than having users take turns broadcasting and listening on each channel, up to 30 users will be able to share each channel.
- Combining the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands creates more channels for data, and 1024 QAM encoding (which is an experimental feature in some 802.11ac routers) allows for more data per packet.
- Uplink scheduling takes some of the delay out of waiting for a free channel, as routers can tell clients when they'll have time to listen for uploads.
- Wake time scheduling lets routers tell clients to take a nap until they have time to chat, scheduling when to wake up in advance. That helps save battery life.
What Are the Downsides of 802.11ax?
802.11ax is a hardware upgrade, not a software upgrade. To see real improvements with 802.11ax, you need both the router and client to support ax. Busy, public Wi-Fi systems like coffee shops and hotels may not upgrade their routers frequently.
You also need as many ax clients on the network as possible. As ax clients replace older, slower 802.11g or 802.11n clients, the overall network speed and capacity will increase. So, once again, it'll take a few years before you really see 802.11ax capacity improvements on public Wi-Fi.
When Will 802.11ax Routers Go On Sale?
You should expect 802.11ax routers to come from all of the major router vendors, such as Netgear and D-Link, for the 2017 holiday season. The technology will appear in laptops and phones in 2018, and will probably be included in Qualcomm's presumed next Snapdragon chip (along with Qualcomm's new X20 modem) in 2018.