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The evolution of Wi-Fi standards: 802.11a to ax

At
the point when you’re hoping to purchase new wireless networking gear to set up
your home Wi-Fi network, business Wi-Fi organization or to purchase a phone,
you’re confronted with a variety of decisions and abbreviations. The innovation
encompassing Wi-Fi being the biggest offender with regards to abbreviations and
various naming constructions.

Since
Wi-Fi was first released to consumers in 1997, Wi-Fi standards have been advancing
– typically coming about in quicker speeds and further inclusion. With each new
capacity comes a name change to set the guidelines separated. As abilities are
added to the first IEEE 802.11 standard, they become known by their amendment (802.11b,
802.11g, and so forth).

In
2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance took steps to make Wi-Fi standards names more
straightforward to distinguish and comprehend (Wi-Fi 4, Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, and
so on)

What might have been known as the “802.11ax standard” is currently more obvious as “Wi-Fi 6.” To follow the new naming construction, the Wi-Fi Alliance re-named the two past standards (802.11n and 802.11ac) to Wi-Fi 4 and 5.The request of all of the Wi-Fi standards from 1999 to introduce are as per the following:

Source: semfionetworks

• 1997 – 802.11b
• 1999 – 802.11b
• 1999 – 802.11a
• 2003 – 802.11g
• 2009 – 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4)
• 2014 – 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5)
• 2019 – 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6)
• 2019 – 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6E)
• Future – 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7)?

802.11b

802.11b utilized a similar 2.4 GHz frequency as the first
802.11 standard. It
upheld a maximum
theoretical rate of 11 Mbps and had a reach up to 150 feet.

02.11b parts were inexpensive, yet the
standard had the slowest maximum
speed of the multitude of 802.11 standards. What’s
more, since 802.11b worked in the 2.4 GHz, home appliances or other 2.4
GHz Wi-Fi networks could
cause obstruction.

Ultimately, 802.11n standard (what might become Wi-Fi 4) went along to replace 802.11a,
802.11b and 802.11g as the new local
network standard (WLAN). (More on Wi-Fi 4 later.)

Today, routers
that only
support 802.11n are not generally made.

802.11a

For what reason did 802.11b before 802.11a?

The ‘a’ amendment
to the standard was delivered simultaneously as 802.11b.
However, it presented a more perplexing method, known as OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) for
creating the wireless
signal.

At the end of the day, 802.11a offered a couple of
benefits over 802.11b:

It worked in the less jam-packed 5 GHz recurrence band,
making it less inclined to interference.

Its transmission capacity was a lot higher than 802.11b,
with a hypothetical max of 54 Mbps.

You likely haven’t experienced numerous 802.11a gadgets
or routers. This is only because 802.11b devices were less expensive and turned
out to be well-known in the consumer market. 802.11a was mainly utilized in
business applications.

802.11g

The 802.11g standard utilized a similar OFDM innovation
presented with 802.11a. Like 802.11a, it upheld a maximum theoretical rate of 54
Mbps. Yet, as 802.11b, it worked in the packed 2.4 GHz recurrence (and
accordingly was subject
to a similar interference
issues as 802.11b).

802.11g was backward compatible with 802.11b devices: a 802.11b
gadget could associate with a 802.11g access point (yet at
802.11b speed rates).

With 802.11g, consumers partook in a critical development in Wi-Fi speeds and range.
Simultaneously, buyer wireless
routers were improving, with higher power and better coverage than earlier generations.

802.11n
(Wi-Fi 4)

With the 802.11n standard, Wi-Fi turned out to be considerably quicker
and more reliable. It
upheld a maximum
theoretical transfer rate of 300 Mbps (and could reach up to 450 Mbps
when utilizing three antennae).

802.11n utilized MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output)
where different transmitters/recipients could work simultaneously at one or both ends of the link to a single device.
This gave a huge expansion in data without
requiring a higher data transmission or transmit power.

802.11n worked in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands

802.11ac
(Wi-Fi 5)

802.11ac supercharged Wi-Fi, with speeds going from 433 Mbps all the way up to several Gigabits each second. To accomplish this sort of execution, 802.11ac:

• Worked solely in the 5 GHz band
• Supported up to eight spatial streams (contrasted and 802.11n’s four streams)
• Multiplied the channel width up to 80 MHz
• Utilized an technology called beamforming

With beamforming, the antennae essentially transmit the radio signals, so they’re aimed at a particular device.

One more huge advancement with 802.11ac
was multi-client MIMO (MU-MIMO). While MIMO guides various streams to a
solitary client,
MU-MIMO can guide the spatial streams to different devices at the same time.

While MU-MIMO doesn’t add speed to any single client, it
can expand the overall data
throughput of the entire
network.

Wi-Fi 5 was a major advance for Wi-Fi development.
Presently, Wi-Fi is taking one another
big leap from 5 to 6.

Wi-Fi 6
(802.11ax)

The newest
generation Wi-Fi standard is Wi-Fi 6. We were used to Wi-Fi 5 being
supercharged with changes, and presently Wi-Fi 6 offers significantly more.

The greatest things to know about the freshest standard is that Wi-Fi 6:

• Has upgrades similar to 5G.
• Avoids traffic congestion in public spaces.
• Offers higher data rates and capacity, up to 9.6 Gbps.
• Offers better 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz spectrum support.
• Offers expansion in multi-user, multiple input, multiple output (MU-MIMO) from 4 x 4 to 8 x 8.
• Overall, guarantees better and quicker performance.
• Allows you to connect with much more gadgets in your home.

Unlike to
past standards,
Wi-Fi 6 permits one router
to deal with more antennas. Which implies one router can interface
with more gadgets.

Wi-Fi
6 is designed to make wireless internet better in homes and in public.

Wi-Fi 6 is intended to improve remote web in homes and in
broad daylight.

Wi-Fi 6E

You may see Wi-Fi 6E on certain devices. The thing you need to know about Wi-Fi
6E is that it is as old as Wi-Fi
6 aside from one thing: the frequency band that it can extend to. Wi-Fi 6E supports an all-new
6GHz frequency,
which has higher throughputs and lower latency.

Projected
for 2024:

Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be)

In spite of the fact that Wi-Fi 6 just delivered to the
general population, there is now talk about Wi-Fi 7 and what’s to come in the
following in next few
years.

Basically, as history shows, what we can expect is:

• Considerably faster speeds
• Better reach
• Decongested traffic
• Supporting multiple bands at once
• More data squeezed into 4096-QAM (radio signal) to further develop Wi-Fi networks

While Wi-Fi continues to progress, here and there it’s
insufficient on its own.
There are gadgets that can assist with making your home Wi-Fi experience
stunningly better.

Categories
Computer Science Electronics Others

Using Wi-Fi Easy Connect for Setting Up Connected Products

Intro to Wi-Fi Easy Connect

Configuring a Wi-Fi network involves recalling the Wi-Fi credentials – “network name” (SSID) and “password” (PSK) – and entering this information on every new connected product that a user wants to add to their network. As already discussed, this is a process fraught with complexity and prone to many points of failure. Wi-Fi Easy Connect addresses this by allowing a mobile app authorized for the network to introduce a new product onto the network. Wi-Fi Easy Connect aims to do this in a secure way and without disclosing the specific encryption keys of the new product to the mobile app.

Key Components

There are two main roles in the protocol – the Configurator and the Enrollee. Both have been simplified to specifically illustrate the case of a mobile app working with a connected product.

Configurator

This is the mobile app that already has capabilities – and authorization – to provision products on to a network. It may also delegate this role to another device/app, which can then also act as a Configurator. A Configurator can be used to provision both Access Points (APs) and Clients.

Enrollee

The Enrollee is the new product that needs to be provisioned on to a network. It receives authorization from a Configurator to join the network. Both the AP and the client can be an Enrollee.

As an example, the mobile app can be used to set up a new network by configuring the SSID, etc on a new AP. The app can then be used to add a new product – such as a camera – to the network.

Either the Configurator or the Enrollee can initiate the Wi-Fi Easy Connect protocol. The device initiating a protocol is called the Initiator and the device responding is similarly called the Responder. But there are security implications for this as described below.

Overall Protocol Summary

There are four steps in the Wi-Fi Easy Connect – bootstrapping, authentication, provisioning and connectivity. Here is a brief note on each step.

Bootstrapping

Wi-Fi Easy Connect relies heavily on the public-private key pair mechanism. Specifically, the public keys are used for both identification and authentication of all devices. Bootstrapping is the process of setting up the trust – by setting up the public keys – between the mobile app and the product prior to performing the Wi-Fi Easy Connect protocol. This is an out-of-band mechanism that is not mandated by the Wi-Fi Easy Connect specification. Suggestions include QR codes, NFC and even BLE.

As an example, a user can scan a QR code containing the public key of a camera with their mobile app. The mobile app thus can initiate authentication with the camera using this public key and be certain that it is provisioning the correct camera.

Authentication

This step aims to authenticate the mobile app and the product  to each other and prove possession of the private counterparts to the respective public keys. The connected product  is always strongly authenticated because the mobile app is guaranteed to receive the product’s public key (e.g. via QR code). However, mutual authentication – providing the mobile app’s public key to the product – is optional.

Provisioning

This step is always initiated by the connected product and only takes place if authentication was successful. As part of this phase the mobile app provides a Connector to the connected product. This Connector is the credential information used by the connected product to establish connectivity. It is useful to note that the user’s AP can also be similarly provided a Connector by the mobile app when the user first sets up their AP (the mechanism is identical).

Connectivity

This is the final step during which the connected product can use the Connector information to prove to the user’s AP that it has been authorized to join the network. This is always initiated by the connected product. At the end of this step, both the AP and the connected product can successfully communicate with each other.

A Note on WPA3

WPA3 is the latest revision of the Wi-Fi Protected Access security protocol. Wi-Fi Easy Connect and WPA3 are intended to work in conjunction with each other to improve security and ease of use. Here are some important new features:

More secure public hotspots

Today, public hotspots typically do not use encryption and any Wi-Fi traffic over these networks is sent unprotected. Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE) provides a mechanism to encrypt such traffic, improving Wi-Fi security at coffee shops, airports, etc.

More secure individual access

WPA2 uses a mechanism that generates the same encryption keys for all devices on the network. This allows any user on the network to sniff traffic for all devices. WPA3 encrypts traffic of each device with separate keys, preventing such snooping.

Some Security Considerations

While the Wi-Fi Easy Connect was designed to be secure, simply using Wi-Fi Easy Connect does not guarantee security. Here are some things to consider when using Wi-Fi Easy Connect:

Consider whether a public key can be trusted

Bootstrapping is the foundation on which all further authentication is based. So it is critical to have confidence that the public key from the transmitter is from the genuine transmitter. For example, a QR code (containing the public key) can be replaced by an overlaid sticker (with a different public key). BLE bootstrapping can also be similarly vulnerable.

Use mutual authentication where possible

With Wi-Fi Easy Connect, the connected product is always authenticated by the mobile app. But mutual authentication is optional and requires a mechanism to additionally convey the public key of the mobile app to the connected product. This additional step adds complexity but substantially improves security. Without this, the connected product can only weakly authenticate the mobile app.

Compatibility

In order to use Wi-Fi Easy Connect, both the mobile app and the connected product must support Wi-Fi Easy Connect. Products that support Wi-Fi Easy Connect are backwards-compatible with legacy devices (APs, clients). The mobile app is capable of passing legacy SSID and PSK information to the connected product – allowing it to join a legacy AP – as long as the mobile app has this information.

This raises some particularly tricky corner cases, and care must be taken not to leave the user stranded. ZipKey is compatible with both WPA3 and Easy Connect and provides an elegant way to cover the corner cases as well as a secure way to bootstrap Wi-Fi Easy Connect.

Categories
Computer Science Electronics

Wifi 6: is this the next step

Wifi 6: is this the next step

In the world of gaming, streaming, and video calls, one aspect is especially important that is bandwidth speeds, the increasing qualities and framerates require more and more high-speed data transmission, and for that technologies must evolve with time. Wi-Fi 6 is a big step in that direction, with this the things are going to get better, speedier, and great quality. If you want to know more about how this technology is going to work and affect your internet use, this is the post for you.

 

Here Goes – What exactly is Wi-Fi 6 or 802.11ax?

Wi-Fi 6 is an industry certification program based on the IEEE 802.11ax standard. With the evolution of Wi-Fi standards, Wi-Fi Alliance (WFA) renames Wi-Fi standards using sequence numbers to help Wi-Fi users and device vendors easily learn about their connection and supported Wi-Fi device models. Wi-Fi 6 enables the next generation Wi-Fi connectivity promising higher capacity, coverage, and performance even in hyper-dense environments. These networks enable lower battery consumption making them perfectly suited for modern connected applications, such as smart homes, Internet of Things, and Smart Manufacturing. It is the improved version of the previous Wi-Fi technology Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac). The origin of Wi-Fi 6 came into being because of the constantly growing number of devices that require the internet with high bandwidth-demanding applications, and in this release, it resolves most of these issues.

Wireless Standards Over Time

Release Year

802.11 Standard

Frequency Band

New Name

 

802.11n

2.4 GHz or GHz

Wi-Fi 4

2013

802.11ac Wave 1

5 GHz

Wi-Fi 5

2015

802.11ac Wave 2

5GHz

 

2019

802.11ax

2.4 GHz or 5 GHz

Wi-Fi 6

 

802.11n (2008)

802.11ac (2012)

802.11ax (2018)

• 2.4 and 5 GHz

• 40 MHz Channels

• 64-QAM Rates

• Up to 4 Streams

• Beamforming (explicit and implicit)

• Backwards compatibility with 11a/b/g

• 5 GHz only

• 80 and160 MHz Channels

• 256-QAM Rates

• Up to 8 Streams

• Beamforming (explicit)

• Multi-user MIMO

• Backwards compatibility with 11a/b/g/n

• 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz

• 1024-QAM Rates

• Multi-user MIMO, 8 clients

• OFDMA uplink and downlink

• Better battery life (Target Wake Time)

• Spatial re-use (BSS color)

• Enhanced outdoor long-range performance

• Backwards compatibility with 11a/b/g/n/ac

 

Enhancements in 802.11ax

High-Efficiency-Wireless (HEW) or Wi-Fi 6

 

In reality, How fast is it?

The theoretical answer is up to 9.6 Gbps increasing from 3.5 Gbps in Wi-Fi 5. The speed could get as much as 30% faster from its predecessor. Wi-Fi 6 can provide higher speed by implementing advanced data encoding (1024 QAM) and using the upgraded chips to encode and decode these signals and thus packing more data into the same signal space. However, you might still not be able to utilize the full advantage of WI-Fi 6 as most ISPs do not provide the speeds that this new technology can get up to.

 

What are the core technologies of Wi-Fi 6?

The Wi-fi 6 consists of two main techs that are an upgraded version of

  • OFDMA – Orthogonal frequency division multiple access
  • DL/UL MU-MIMO – Downlink/uplink multi-user, multiple input, multiple output
  • Higher-order modulation technology (1024-QAM)
  • Spatial Reuse (SR) & basic service set (BSS) coloring mechanism
  • Extended Range – Longer OFDM symbol

 

 

  • OFDMA

802.11ax introduces a more efficient data transmission mode, which is called OFDMA. 802.11ax supports the uplink and downlink MU mode; therefore, this mode can also be called MU-OFDMA. It allows multiple users to reuse channel resources by allocating subcarriers to different users and adding multiple access in the OFDM system. The 802.11ax standard defines the smallest subchannel as a resource unit (RU). Each RU includes at least 26 subcarriers, and users are distinguished by time-frequency RUs. The resources of the entire channel are divided into small fixed time-frequency RUs. In this mode, user data is carried on each RU. Therefore, on the total time-frequency resources, multiple users may simultaneously send data on each time segment.

 

 

  • DL/UL MU-MIMO

OFDMA complements another feature worth mentioning called multi-user, multiple input multiple output, or MU-MIMO for short. MU-MIMO uses the spatial diversity of channels to transmit independent data streams on the same bandwidth.

Unlike SU-MIMO in earlier 802.11 standards, MU-MIMO was introduced in Wi-Fi 5 which greatly improves the throughput and the entire network. In 802.11ax, the number of MU-MIMO is further increased from DL 4×4 MU-MIMO, and DL 8×8 MU-MIMO is supported.

UL MU-MIMO is an important feature introduced in 802.11ax. Similar to UL SU-MIMO, UL MU-MIMO uses the same channel resources to transmit data on multiple spatial streams by using the multi-antenna technology of the transmitter and receiver.

High-performance experience with multi-user features
OFDMA (uplink and downlink) and MU-MIMO (downlink)

OFDMA increases capacity

MU-MIMO increases capacity

OFDMA reduces latency for voice and IoT

MU-MIMO results in higher speed and

throughput per user – transmit to up to 8 clients

Ideal for low bandwidth, small packets (voice and IoT), latency sensitive applications

Ideal for higher bandwidth applications such as

HD Video or large files

 

  • 1024-QAM

With 1024QAM, Wi-Fi 6 can deliver a 25% increase in capacity over 256 – QAM, particularly at close distances.  With 1024-QAM, each symbol carries 10 bits rather than 8 bits, improving raw speeds compared to 802.11ac 256-QAM. This makes the streaming experience much better for users.

  • BSS Coloring

802.11ax introduces a new co-frequency transmission identification mechanism called BSS (Basic Service Set) coloring. Wi-Fi 6, BSS coloring is another method to differentiate between BSSs (that is, access points and their devices) on the same channel. The BSS color field is added to the PHY packet header to color data from different BSSs and allocate a color to each channel. If the colors are the same, we can tell that the interference signals come from the same BSS, and signal transmission should be delayed. If the colors are different, no interference exists between the two Wi-Fi devices. The two Wi-Fi devices can then transmit data on the same channel and at the same frequency.

 

  • Extended Range – Longer OFDM symbol

OFDM is a symbol that transmits data. It divides its data among smaller subcarriers for more stability and wider coverage. Wi-Fi 6 uses a 4x longer OFDM symbol to create 4x more subcarriers. Because of this, Wi-Fi 6’s longer OFDM symbol provides increased coverage and makes it 11% faster. A long OFDM symbol will ensure the arrival of clean data packets and reduce retransmission times, which increases coverage distance.

 

Benefits of Wi-Fi 6

Wi-Fi 6 brings in significant improvements through key enabling technologies such as MU-MIMO, OFDMA, BSS Coloring, Longer OFDMA symbol, etc. to achieve faster and highly optimized Wi-Fi performance. Some other features of   Wi-Fi 6 are the support for the 2.4 GHz frequency band and target wakeup time (TWT).

  • Support for 2.4 GHz frequency band

When deploying a high-density wireless network, the 2.4 GHz frequency band is not only used to be compatible with old devices but also to fill coverage holes in edge areas. each other. The 2.4 GHz frequency band has been abandoned in the 802.11ac standard. However, 2.4 GHz is still available. Therefore 802.11ax standard supports the 2.4 GHz frequency band to utilize this frequency band. Several IoT devices still use STAs in compliance only with the 2.4 GHz frequency band terminal as they are more cost-effective.

  • TWT – Reduce Power consumption

Longer battery life for all your devices

An 802.11ax AP can negotiate with the participating STAs the use of the TWT function to define a specific time or set of times for individual STAs to access the medium. The STAs and the AP exchange information. Target Wake Time (TWT) allows devices to negotiate when and how often they will wake up to send or receive data, increasing device sleep time and substantially improving battery life for mobile and IoT devices. This saves all devices from constantly having to wake up to check for data. The tech can also result in reduced congestion, as the access point can schedule wake-ups without having any overlap between devices

 

 

  • Improved performance, even in crowded places

We often go to public places like cafes, libraries or say your subway stations and encounter reduced speeds as the number of devices connected to the wireless router is a lot. The new Wi-Fi 6 increases the speed of each user connected to it by at least four times in crowded areas (using OFDMA, MU-MIMO, 1024-QAM, etc.). The performance is increased not just for public Wi-Fi but also for our homes with increasing speed for everyone.

  • Security updates

Wi-Fi 6 technology comes up with some security updates too as your Wi-Fi can be very much prone to hackers and you could very much lose your sensitive information over the network. Wi-Fi 6 supports the latest security protocol that is WPA3 which stands for wireless protected access 3. In Wi-Fi 6 the WPA3 is required for the certification from the Wi-Fi alliance, hence most Wi-Fi 6 enabled devices are likely to get this security protocol which means stronger security on private networks as well as public ones.

 

802.11ax vs. 802.11ac
Major feature comparison

Feature

802.11ac

802.11ax

Impact

Bands

5 GHz

2.4 and 5GHz

Increased Capacity and Throughput

Target wake time

NA

Supports TWT

Reduces medium access contention, Better battery life

Data Rates

433 Mbps (80MHz ,1SS)

600 Mbps (80 MHz,1SS) 9.60 Gbps(160MHz,8SS)

Increased Throughput

Highest modulation

256 QAM

1024 QAM

Increased Capacity

Subcarrier Spacing

312.5 kHz

78.12 kHz

Increased Capacity per channel

MU-MIMO

Only DL

DL and UL

Better mechanism to handle uplink traffic

OFDMA

NA

DL and UL

Better medium access technology, less overhead, and pooling

 

 

Conclusion

The Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) network uses technologies such as OFDMA, UL MU-MIMO, and 1024-QAM to ensure reliable network. Meanwhile, the new Wi-Fi standard standards bring many changes to users as a whole but we have to keep in mind just buying the Wi-fi 6 enabled device won’t bring the drastic speed updates to and it will also be based on the area you live in and the internet service providers too. The Wi-fi 6 main advantage is multitasking, in other words, the latest Wi-fi standard can handle multiple devices at the same time whether it is your home or a crowded public space. The new standard Wi-fi 6 is indeed a meaningful change in terms of speed and ability to multi-task many devices, things can take some time to catch up to it.