Wi-Fi 6 is officially here: Certification program begins

The Wi-Fi Alliance officially launched its Wi-Fi 6 certification program on Monday, and informally started the broad scale by implementing the new Wi-Fi standard. As with the group's previous certification programs, the Wi-Fi 6 certification program is focused on verifying interoperability and feature sets for IEEE 802.11ax devices, ensuring that they work well with each other and that the devices have all the required performance and security features of the new standard .

Wi-Fi Alliance certification comes because device manufacturers have already shipped Wi-Fi 6 products in recent months – mainly the seed hardware ecosystem to get to this point. So the first task for the team members and testing labs will be to certify existing Wi-Fi 6 devices. This includes existing access points, routers and client devices, including Samsung's Galaxy Note 1[ads1]0, which has become the first smartphone to receive certification.

Under the hood, the new standard takes a bit off previous Wi-Fi iterations by focusing more on improving performance in shared environments, as opposed to simply increasing high device transfer rates. To that end, while the maximum throughput supported by Wi-Fi 6 is 2.4 Gbps, the crucial improvement in Wi-Fi 6 / 802.11ax technology is the standard's enhanced spectral efficiency. Among other things, the technology adds to the Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) technology to allow different devices to be operated by one channel, by dedicating different sub-carriers to individual client devices. Wi-Fi 6 also adds mandatory support for MU-MIMO – a feature first added to 802.11ac Wave 2 – in addition to transmitting beamforming to better reach individual clients.

In fact, even existing Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) client devices can benefit from a Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) AP, although Wi-Fi 6 certified devices will deliver the best results.

Meanwhile, the Wi-Fi Alliance requires Wi-Fi 6 certified devices to support WPA3 security, 1024-QAM, 160 MHz channels, and that devices support target wake-up time (a battery-saving technology that minimizes device check-ins).

The Wi-Fi Alliance has finally, together with the launch of the certification program itself, already certified its first dozen devices. The following network cards, chipsets and access points are all Wi-Fi 6 certified:

• Broadcom BCM4375
• Broadcom BCM43698
• Broadcom BCM43684
• Cypress CYW 89650 Auto-Grade Wi-Fi 6 Certified [19659008] Intel Wi- Fi 6 (Gig +) AX200 (for PCs)
• Intel Home Wi-Fi Chipset WAV600 Series (for routers and gateways)
• Marvell 88W9064 (4×4) Wi-Fi 6 Dual-Band STA
• Marvell 88W9064 ( 4×4) + 88W9068 (8×8) Wi-Fi 6 Simultaneous Dual Band AP
• Qualcomm Networking Pro 1200 Platform
• Qualcomm FastConnect 6800 Wi-Fi 6 Mobile Connectivity Subsystem
• Ruckus R750 Wi-Fi 6 Access Point

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Source: Wi-Fi Alliance