Tech News: New Era Begins As Wi-Fi Alliance Unveils Wi-Fi 6 Certification

What is being hailed as a “new Wi-Fi era” officially began Monday.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, a non-profit group within the industry, launched the new Wi-Fi Certified 6 initiative on Monday, putting forth a new set of standards for next-generation wireless internet devices. The initiative is also expected to encourage more companies to jump into the realm of Wi-Fi 6 technologies.

Manufacturers that take part in this new program and meet the standard will sport a certification badge on their packaging. The specific technology being employed in these new devices are 802.11ax Wi-Fi radios, for which the term “Wi-Fi 6” will serve as a more user-friendly synonym. Through a number of specific hardware changes, Wi-Fi 6 is said to be up to 40% faster than its predecessor, Wi-Fi 5.

According to CNet, a handful of technologies on the market already offer Wi-Fi 6 capabilities. These include a number of routers and the Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus, the latter of which Samsung claims of the first smartphone to support the next generation Wi-Fi technology. Apple’s upcoming iPhone 11 range of products will also support Wi-Fi 6.

“With adoption of the latest Wi-Fi generation increasing, product vendors and service providers can trust Wi-Fi Certified will distinguish Wi-Fi 6 products and networks that meet the highest standards for security and interoperability,” the Wi-Fi Alliance said.

Some of the companies the Alliance claims are taking part in the new initiative include Asus, AT&T, Boingo, Broadcom, Cisco, Comcast, Intel, Netgear, Qualcomm, Samsung, TP-Link, and Xiaomi.

For the remainder of 2019, the spread of Wi-Fi 6 is expected to be slow to start, with growth speeding up in 2020 and beyond.