Wi-Fi 6E Solves Today’s Connectivity Problems For Small Businesses and Power-User Households

Congestion and bandwidth limitations recede with the arrival of the next big thing in Wi-Fi.

Service providers looking to sustain and build their businesses are turning to Wi-Fi 6E as the catalyst to meet the desires of subscribers –both at home and in business— for higher connection speeds and lower latency.

Those who are late to the Wi-Fi 6E game risk higher subscriber churn as competitors find service alternatives and a growing Wi-Fi 6E ecosystem capable of delivering those benefits.

A statement in May 2022 from Wi-Fi Alliance president Edgar Figueroa, illustrates the breadth of Wi-Fi 6E ecosystem fueling demand: “Wi-Fi 6E is widely available and here today, and Wi-Fi Alliance members are seeing strong demand that will continue for years to come,” he said. “Wi-Fi Alliance has certified more than 400 Wi-Fi 6E devices, equating to hundreds of thousands of interoperable Wi-Fi devices that are already delivering a high-quality user experience.”

The Wi-Fi 6E Difference
Wi-Fi 6E solves the congestion and bandwidth issues households, small businesses and SOHO enterprises have grappled with using predecessor technology. Unlike Wi-Fi 5, which operates at 5GHz, and Wi-Fi 6, which operates on 2.4GHz and 5GHz, Wi-Fi 6E makes use of three license-exempt bands: 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz.

Offering access to as many as seven 160MHz channels, Wi-Fi 6E leverages Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) modulation. Together these characteristics improve speed and capacity when compared to older technologies.  

That’s huge for consumers and businesses looking to keep pace with today’s demands. For example, homeowners using older alternatives with family many different members using the home network at once may experience choppy audio and video, spinning hourglasses and dropped connections. Consider a household where some people stream 4K or 8K movies while others play online games and still others pay bills online, video conference and stream music. Wi-Fi 6E performance solves those problems.

The same is true of a small business or SoHo enterprise that needs to provide workers and consumers with reliable connectivity, even as the number of people joining the network grows. Consider sports bar patrons. Will they be likely to come back if they cannot access the latest stats due to inferior Wi-Fi service. The same is true of countless other businesses ranging from law offices where network congestion can hinder productivity to retail shops where staff and customers alike can’t find the data they need due to impaired connectivity.

Solving these and many other real-world problems for end users is why Wi-Fi 6E is becoming the go-to solution for service providers and hardware vendors wishing to meet growing expectations for speed, connectivity and low-latency.

The proof is in the numbers. A projection from the Wi-Fi Alliance, pegs the number of Wi-Fi 6E devices that entered the market last year at 350 million, an estimate in line with the 340 million published in the Wireless Broadband Alliance’s 2022 industry report.

Bandwidth, speed and low-latency expectations will only grow over time as deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT) continues on its upward trajectory.

According to the Cisco Annual Internet Report (2018-2023) White Paper, the “wave of IoT applications dramatically changes wireless networking requirements….” The report projects that IoT devices will account for half of all networked devices this year--nearly one-third of which will be wireless.

Service providers that choose to deploy Wi-Fi 6E today are positioning themselves for these developments—and perhaps more importantly—sidestepping the downside of doing nothing. Wi-Fi 6E offers service providers a way to differentiate themselves from the competition and in the process benefit from higher customer satisfaction, increased revenue and lower subscriber turnover.

Positioning For The Future
While Wi-Fi 6E positions service providers to meet today’s and tomorrow’s demands for wireless bandwidth, they must also consider how the Wi-Fi 6E routers they market will help or hinder their service.

As 10 gigabit internet service becomes more widespread over time, service providers will wish they asked themselves today if the Wi-Fi 6E routers they are putting into homes and businesses will allow them to shine tomorrow.

While the wireless routers may support 10G Wi-Fi, does the LAN component of the device also support 10G? Will technicians in the field and service providers more broadly be left with dissatisfied customers who eagerly await their Wi-Fi 6E installation only to find that a network speed test comes nowhere close because of such LAN limitations?

Service providers should be cautious with their deployment plans because many of the routers under consideration to support Wi-Fi 6E may only support 1G or 2.5G LAN connectivity, which will limit consumers’ access to higher network capacity. Choosing a Wi-Fi 6E wireless router today with 10G support through and through—in other words with the wireless and LAN components—will future proof service providers as they upgrade their networks.

Zyxel and Wi-Fi 6E
Zyxel is an industry veteran, offering connectivity solutions since 1989 when it entered the market with analog modems. Since then, it has gained a reputation among service providers around the world for offering customer premise equipment (CPE) that delivers high performance and great value.

With a strong U.S. presence, Zyxel offers local customer support service providers can rely upon to address technical issues promptly when they arise.

Zyxel’s EX7710 broadband CPE router is its Wi-Fi 6E market entrant. The router offers 10G through-and-through performance and is designed to solve the problems households and small businesses are facing with their existing Wi-Fi deployments.

Not only does the tri-band Wi-Fi 6E router offer service providers a way to stay competitive as customers demand greater performance, but the EX7710 also positions them to make legitimate claims about being on the leading edge of Wi-Fi technology when marketing their higher capacity service.

For troublesome dead spots, Zyxel offers the WX5610 AX7800 Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band Wireless Extender. An important part of the Zyxel MPro Mesh^TM solutions, the WX5610 gives carriers a solution for customers who need to maintain smooth data streaming and seamless roaming throughout their homes and offices.

Together with the Zyxel EX7710 CPE router, these solutions offer service providers a way to keep pace with the ever-growing demands of small businesses, SOHO enterprises and Wi-Fi power user households for high-performance Wi-Fi service that make congestion, bandwidth limitations and reliability concerns things of the past.

To learn more about Zyxel's Solutions, contact us at [email protected] or connect with Power & Tel for more information.