Expand Your Event’s Bandwidth with Wi-Fi 6

March 13, 2019

A new Wi-Fi advance could significantly increase the speed at which planners and attendees communicate with their tech at events. Wi-Fi 6, the newest generation of broadband could be coming to a ballroom near you. Wi-Fi 6 will have a much higher data rate than Wi-Fi 5—three times faster.

Improved Capacity and Battery Life

Speed alone doesn’t mean much, as the average tech consumer is unlikely to achieve Wi-Fi 6’s top speed in daily life. Where the upgrade really shines is in its ability to handle a larger number of devices on a crowded network than Wi-Fi 5, the current standard.

Wi-Fi 6 features more channels–double the number provided by Wi-Fi 5–thereby providing more room to send and receive data from the various devices in the event space. That will increase the number of devices that can operate simultaneously on each channel. Planners, suppliers and attendees will be able to do business and exchange information much quicker than they were previously able to do.

Device battery life could see an improvement as well, due to more efficient router communication, said Corbin Ball, international speaker and technology consultant, when asked about Wi-Fi 6’s potential benefits.

Better Security

Users of Wi-Fi 6 will experience enhanced security as well, as Wi-Fi Alliance, the backbone of all things Wi-Fi, introduced WPA3 last year, Wi-Fi’s latest security update. Current devices and routers support WPA3 as an option, but with Wi-Fi 6 it will be a requirement. Users of WPA3 will have added protection from the network security’s even more strict password authentication and data traffic protection in the case that a password is compromised.

Routers that support Wi-Fi 6 will start to appear at access points across the country in the third quarter of the year. The Samsung Galaxy S10—set to release Mar. 8—will be the first Wi-Fi 6-compatible consumer product. Other compatible devices will appear as this new version becomes the consumer standard.