Wi-Fi 6E arrives at CES 2021

Wi-Fi 6E is very slowly coming to a product near you. Wi-Fi Alliance has begun to certify devices January 7thAnd CES 2021 saw plenty of product announcements related to the launch of Wi-Fi 6E.

Wi-Fi 6E, in case you haven’t heard, is a new, previously approved, Wi-Fi standard FCC last year. Whereas, Wi-Fi 6 (no “e,” aka 802.11ax) is A. A host of technical improvements Mostly aiming for a more efficient use of the existing spectrum, Wi-Fi 6E is about expanding the Wi-Fi network to a newly edited range of spectrum. Previously, Wi-Fi only worked on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrum, but Wi-Fi 6E uses the 6GHz spectrum. In the United States, 6E has a large portion of the continuous spectrum – 1200MHz. Previously, 5GHz offered only 140MHz of useful non-DFS spectrum, 2.4GHz only had 70MHz of extremely crowded spectrum, and it was susceptible to microwave operation and other interference.

Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E are not all about speed – both are more about dealing with Wi-Fi capacity issues, which often raise their heads in apartment buildings and large public gatherings. If your Wi-Fi network is currently poor due to congested airwaves in a crowded area, then Wi-Fi 6E can greatly improve the performance of your wireless connection. Getting Wi-Fi 6E does mean buying new customers and access points, though, so hence the article.

The most popular device at CES was the Samsung Galaxy S21And, although the cheaper variants don’t include Wi-Fi 6E, the “Ultra” model costs $ 1,200. Most accountsIt’s the “world’s first Wi-Fi 6E phone.” Expect this trend to continue for most Android phones in 2021. Wi-Fi 6E is one of the options in the Snapdragon 888 SoC that will end up in most flagship devices, and you’ll likely see more expensive models adopt it.

Wi-Fi 6E is coming to laptops, too. MSI’s GE76 Rider It looks like it will be the first Wi-Fi 6E laptop, thanks to Intel’s Wi-Fi AX210 card. Intel AX210 is For sale By the way, so you can upgrade most desktop and laptop computers to Wi-Fi 6E on your own, now, with an additional card. The customers are coming, so what we need are Wi-Fi 6E access points, or “routers” when you talk about all-in-one consumer network equipment. Most of the big consumer network brands showed up at CES with their Wi-Fi 6E router to show off.

Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000

We started with the router closest to general availability: the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000. This was announced throughout September as the “world’s first Wi-Fi 6E gaming router,” but it finally got a release window: January 2021. Newge Currently available for pre-order for $ 549.99 with a January 29 release date, but some reports They say The router is already charging. As with many “gaming” routers, the GT-AXE1100 has a crazy design that looks like it can flip over again and start wandering like a spider at any moment.

Besides the usual 4x Gigabit LAN ports on the back and one Gigabit WAN port, there is also an additional 2.5Gbps port on the back, which you can configure for a WAN or LAN. The 2.5gig WAN port looks like something that will be increasingly useful in the future, but I don’t think there are any consumer-class modems that can take advantage of that yet. Comcast has a file 2Gbps service, But this appears to be dependent on modems that can do link aggregation over two gigabit Ethernet ports. Google has very limited availability 2 Gbps internet service, But this does come with its own networking equipment Registration pageClients will not be able to use their router. Plan ahead, I think!

Most of the specifications on these routers duplicate the standard Wi-Fi 6 / 6E features, but Asus lists a quad-core 1.8GHz 64-bit CPU with 1GB RAM, which looks like it can handle a lot more. Traffic without slowing down. The router supports 4×4 MU-MIMO for 5GHz and 6GHz, to get a theoretical maximum speed of 4.8Gbps. There are also two USB 3.2 ports on the side for a cheap NAS setup.

Netgear Knighthawk AXE11000

Request permission to dock at starbase, it is Netgear Nighthawk AXE11000 Wi-Fi Router. Nighthawk appears to hit the same specs as the Asus router but increases by $ 50: $ 599.99.

Stop me if this sounds familiar: Quad-core 1.8GHz processor and memory, 4×4 MU-MIMO for 5GHz and 6GHz, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit WAN, 4GB LAN, and 2.5gig port for WAN or LAN. Just like the Asus router, there are eight antennas, but instead of a spider design, there are four antennas at each wing end.

Netgear’s entry into the Wi-Fi 6E router competition for pre-order is now available, with my estimated availability on March 15th.

Linksys AXE8400

If you ever wonder what white is Xbox X Series It will look like, meet Linksys AXE8400. This is easily the less insane design for the new Wi-Fi 6E routers, and since placing the router in a central, visible location is one of the best things you can do for connectivity, this could be a big deal for you. (Fun fact: Linksys design is in the past At least until 2018 And thus far ahead of the new Xbox! There’s even a file An older version It comes in black, if you want a miniature version of Microsoft’s game console.)

Linksys is a network router and comes at $ 449.99 per pack, $ 849.99 per pack, and $ 1,199.99 per pack. Linksys Press release Lists the US release date as “Spring / Summer 2021” with “Global availability to follow in the second half of 2021.” Because mesh routers have the ability to take advantage of the fastest 6GHz spectrum unlocking possible, they are could Use 6 GHz to switch between access points, freeing up 5GHz for client connections only.

With no public data sheet yet, very little important detail about the AXE8400 is provided at the moment. Just from the pictures, there are four LAN ports on the back of the Unspecified Speed, along with one USB 3.x port. The WAN port is called “5 gigabit internet”, so Linksys appears to be really ready for multi-gigabit modems, if it’s ever produced.

One of the interesting technical specifications Linksys is publishing now is that the AXE8400 containsQualcomm Networking Pro 1210“The chipset is, at its core, Qualcomm’s platform for companies looking to build a Wi-Fi 6E router. This is a quad-core 2.2GHz Cortex A53 chip, built on 14nm process technology.

Linksys site Also raises what appears to be a non-network Wi-Fi 6E router, but we don’t even have a name for it yet.

TP-Link Bringing an SFP + Port to the Party ?!

With we’re finally here with no release date or price whatsoever, we have a pair of TP-Link routers. First , TP-Link Archer AX206, Which contains Wi-Fi 6E with 4 x 4 MU-MIMO. The interesting thing here are some serious wired networking options. It’s a shame that TP-Link only provided one image, because the back of this thing looks pretty busy: a USB-C port, a USB-A port, four Gigabit Ethernet ports, a 2.5Gbps WAN / LAN port, a WAN / port 10Gbps LAN, and when you want to get it really Seriously, 10 Gbps SFP + WAN / LAN portFor optical fiber connection. Stop.

The SFP + port is an eye catcher, but I can’t say that I really understand the market segmentation here. SFP + ports are typically used for connection in commercial (or Home lab crowd) To connect one device in your network carrier to another. I can’t imagine Rackmount-American wanting to touch one of their consumer plastic combo boxes with a 10-foot pole. I find it difficult to imagine selling a $ 40 fiber optic cable to an off-grid enthusiast, and even if you can do it, TP-Link’s consumer division doesn’t sell any other SFP + equipment. In a world where we can’t even push modem manufacturers to bypass Gigabit Ethernet, what is the average person supposed to do with SPF +? I think more options are always better, but we’ll have to see what the price tag for these cool and questionably useful additions looks like.

Finally out of TP-Link is the Archer AX96And while, again, there’s no price or release date, it looks like it will be a cheaper Wi-Fi 6E router. The main tip is the speed rating for Wi-Fi 6E 6GHz, which is only “2402Mbps,” indicating that this router only operates 2×2 MIMO on the 6GHz spectrum, or half the speed of Asus and Netgear. 5GHz still looks like 4×4 MIMO, so this router will allow a small step up to 6GHz.

On the back (again, no pictures), there are WAN / LAN ports at 2.5Gbps and 1Gbps, three 1Gbps LAN ports, USB 3 and USB 2.

Image list by Asus