Announced at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, the Wi-Fi Alliance announces a new certification program centered around 802.11ax, or Wi-Fi 6.
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 is expected to be released in the 3rd quarter of 2019.
In the announcement, Wi-Fi Alliance references the key capabilities of Wi-Fi 6 and how it will improve all Wi-Fi networks. It may be too early to tell which of the key features will be a requirement for Wi-Fi 6 certification.
The new Wi-Fi Alliance certification highlights the following 802.11ax capabilities:
- Uplink and downlink OFDMA
- MU-MIMO increased capability
- Higher data rates
- 1024-QAM
- Target wake time (TWT)
802.11ax is not yet ratified. With the expected release of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6, should we expect IEEE to ratify 802.11ax October 2019?
Here’s a timeline grabbed from two locations. The first timeline came from the 802.11ax task group webpage:
As you can see, as of November 2018 there needs to be a Draft 4.0 review. The timeline hasn’t been updated since.
Here’s a WLPC 2017 presentation by Dr. Eldad Perahia showing a timeline:
It appears there may have been delays but we may get actual ratification closer to 2020.
