Wi-Fi 6, 6E and 7

The Wi-Fi Alliance certifies each generation against the underlying IEEE 802.11 standard. Wi-Fi 6 improved efficiency in dense environments such as open offices and classrooms. Wi-Fi 6E extended the same technology into the 6 GHz band, which has more room and fewer legacy devices. Wi-Fi 7 adds wider channels and the ability to use several bands at once for lower latency and higher reliability.

For a growing business the practical gains are fewer dropped video calls from laptops, better performance for the many phones and tablets staff carry, and room for cameras, sensors and room systems. The new bands need new access points and devices that support them, and more access points placed closer together, which makes cabling and PoE part of the upgrade.

Ask your network partner for a site survey rather than a count of access points, which generation they recommend for your device mix and why, how guest, staff and device networks are separated, whether the switches provide enough PoE and speed for the new access points, and how the network is managed and monitored. Cisco Meraki and Ubiquiti are among the platforms Telxpress installs.