CTS 194: State of Wi-Fi 6 from WLPC

From the WLPC Prague presentation. We’ll go over our presentation and what we’ve found about Wi-Fi 6 from our testing.



You can watch our WLPC Prague presentation on YouTube from the WLAN Pros channel. It will include a live Wi-Fi 6 demo where we include the audience.



The demo consisted of 10 WLANpi running iPerf3 servers. We asked people in the audience to connect their Wi-Fi 6 devices to an Aerohive AP broadcasting Wi-Fi 6, of course. A Jetson Nano was used to capture frames.



The presentation slides can be found here.



Watch the presentation below:









Our process included:



* Theory* Lab* Test



As of this recording, Wi-Fi 6 still remains in draft. It is not expected to become a standard until late 2020. Today, we are currently over the peak of inflated expectations.



At WLPC Prague, we asked the audience three questions:



* Do you own a Wi-Fi 6 device?* Have you deployed a Wi-Fi 6 network?* Have you ever connected to a Wi-Fi 6 network that wasn’t yours?



Theory



To start learning about Wi-Fi 6, we had to start with the theory. That meant getting the source of all information regarding 802.11ax. There were other resources we used as well:



* 802.11ax Draft 4* Aruba’s 802.11ax document* Cisco’s IEEE 802.11ax – The Sixth Generation of Wi-Fi* Aerohive’s 802.11ax for Dummies* National Instruments’ Introduction to 802.11ax High-Efficiency Wireless* Wireless Broadband Alliance’s Wi-Fi 6 white papers* CWNA Study Guide (Chapter 19)* Gjermund’s Airtime Calculator



What about the Wi-Fi Alliance?



* Marketing 802.11ax* Wi-Fi 6 certification* What makes a device Wi-Fi 6 certified?* How many are certified today?* Wi-Fi 6* Compatible* Certifiable* Certified



Equipment



We needed to get our hands on Wi-Fi 6 equipment. There very little devices available but we managed to get ahold of Wi-Fi 6 access points and two Wi-Fi 6 devices.