Even as Wi-Fi technology has evolved and become mainstream, its naming convention has still followed the IEEE technology standards names. While those familiar with the industry know what 802.11n, 802.11ac etc mean, for many end users of Wi-Fi these are mysterious letters, with little to no inkling of which is newer, better, faster.
The mobile wireless world has solved this problem by using numbers for their networking technologies: 3G, 4G, 5G. Smartphone makers have solved this in a similar way where even young kids know an iPhone 7 is newer/faster/nicer than an iPhone 6.
About time we did something similar for Wi-Fi? Why, yes it is!
Starting today the Wi-Fi Alliance will promote a new naming convention for people to easily understand the underlying Wi-Fi technology of the device they are using:
- Wi-Fi 6 to identify devices that support 802.11ax technology
- Wi-Fi 5 to identify devices that support 802.11ac technology
- Wi-Fi 4 to identify devices that support 802.11n technology
These names will also become part of the user interfaces of APs and clients with new icons such as the following:
Wi-Fi 4 Wi-Fi 5 Wi-Fi 6
We at Cambium (we are part of the Wi-Fi Alliance) are very excited to see this change and hope wider industry adoption of this helps customers gain a better understanding of the capability of their Wi-Fi devices, and make better, more informed choices when selecting a new device.