Wi-Fi industry launches next-gen 6E certification, and new devices are up next

[ImranQ]

The Wi-Fi Alliance has launched its Wi-Fi 6E certification program for devices equipped to transmit signals on the newly opened 6GHz band, the industry group announced Thursday. The move arrives just in time for

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, and sets the stage for a flood of new, next-gen devices capable of tapping into

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at the fastest speeds Wi-Fi is currently capable of.

Those speeds come by way of

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, which began rolling out as the latest and greatest version of Wi-Fi in 2019. Wi-Fi 6E builds on that standard without replacing it outright by adding in access to the 6GHz band, which the FCC opened for unlicensed use

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.

With enough spectrum to accommodate seven 160 MHz channels at once, that 6GHz band is much wider than the 2.4 and 5GHz bands most Wi-Fi users are already familiar with -- and without any older-generation devices slowing things down, it'll act as sort of an exclusive superhighway for devices equipped to take advantage.

"Wi-Fi 6E will see rapid adoption in 2021 with more than 338 million devices entering the market, and nearly 20 percent of all Wi-Fi 6 device shipments supporting 6GHz by 2022," said Phil Solis, research director at IDC. "This year, we expect to see new Wi-Fi 6E chipsets from several companies, and a variety of new Wi-Fi 6E smartphones, PCs and laptops in the first quarter of 2021 followed by TVs and VR product announcements midyear."

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