The new standard 802.11ax for Wi-Fi goes beyond 802.11ac wireless
A new standard for high speed multi-gigabit WiFi is emerging. Current WiFi products use chips based on the IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11 and IEEE 802.11ac standard have really only begun rolling out, an effort to deliver an enhancement called IEEE 802.11ax that promises to deliver faster and longer range Wi-Fi networks.
The up-coming 802.11ax is as an enhancement of 802.11ac in the unlicensed 2.4 and 5GHz bands of spectrum, and should be a natural upgrade. The upgrade will offer significant speed and range improvements.
Technical Summary
IEEE 802.11 ax is a type of WLAN in the IEEE 802.11 set of types of WLANs. It is designed to improve overall spectral efficiency especially in dense deployment scenarios. It is still in a very early stage of development, but is predicted to have a top speed of around 10 Gb/s, it works in 2.4 and/or 5 GHz, in addition to MIMO and MU-MIMO it introduces OFDMA technique to improve spectral efficiency and also higher order 1024 QAM modulation support for better throughputs. Though the nominal data rate is just 37% higher comparing with 802.11ac, the new amendment will allow achieving 4X increase of user throughput thanks to more efficient spectrum usage. It is due to be publicly released in 2019.
| MCS index |
Modulation type |
Coding rate |
Data rate (in Mb/s) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 MHz channels | 40 MHz channels | 80 MHz channels | 160 MHz channels | |||||||
| 1600 ns GI | 800 ns GI | 1600 ns GI | 800 ns GI | 1600 ns GI | 800 ns GI | 1600 ns GI | 800 ns GI | |||
| 0 | BPSK | 1/2 | 4 | 4 | 8 | 9 | 17 | 18 | 34 | 36 |
| 1 | QPSK | 1/2 | 16 | 17 | 33 | 34 | 68 | 72 | 136 | 144 |
| 2 | QPSK | 3/4 | 24 | 26 | 49 | 52 | 102 | 108 | 204 | 216 |
| 3 | 16-QAM | 1/2 | 33 | 34 | 65 | 69 | 136 | 144 | 272 | 282 |
| 4 | 16-QAM | 3/4 | 49 | 52 | 98 | 103 | 204 | 216 | 408 | 432 |
| 5 | 64-QAM | 2/3 | 65 | 69 | 130 | 138 | 272 | 288 | 544 | 576 |
| 6 | 64-QAM | 3/4 | 73 | 77 | 146 | 155 | 306 | 324 | 613 | 649 |
| 7 | 64-QAM | 5/6 | 81 | 86 | 163 | 172 | 340 | 360 | 681 | 721 |
| 8 | 256-QAM | 3/4 | 98 | 103 | 195 | 207 | 408 | 432 | 817 | 865 |
| 9 | 256-QAM | 5/6 | 108 | 115 | 217 | 229 | 453 | 480 | 907 | 961 |
| 10 | 1024-QAM | 3/4 | 122 | 129 | 244 | 258 | 510 | 540 | 1021 | 1081 |
| 11 | 1024-QAM | 5/6 | 135 | 143 | 271 | 287 | 567 | 600 | 1134 | 1201 |
Technical improvements
The 802.11ax amendment will bring several key improvements over 802.11ac. 802.11ax addresses frequency bands between 1 GHz and 6 GHz. Therefore, unlike 802.11ac, 802.11ax will also operate in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz band. To meet the goal of supporting dense 802.11 deployments the following features have been approved.
Other up-coming Fast WiFi standards: 802.11ay
Users should not confuse 802.11ax with 802.11ay, which will work in the 60GHz bands. The lower frequency bands 1-6GHz for 11ax will penetrate walls. 11ay will not.
What will 802.11ax be used for?
802.11ax is an upgrade for existing 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n and 802.11ac networks, Many are enthusiastic about 802.1ax’s potential as a fixed point-to-point or point-to-multipoint outdoor backhaul technology, especially in light of scaled back fiber rollout plans by providers like Google and Verizon in the face of extraordinary costs associated with such implementations. Therefore 11ax will find applications outdoors as well as indoors.
Who is behind 802.11ax?
The IEEE task force leading the 11ax work includes representatives from major equipment and chipsets vendors.
In 2012 and 2013, IEEE 802.11 received various submissions in its Standing Committee (SC) Wireless Next Generation (WNG) looking at issues of IEEE 802.11ac and potential solutions for future WLANs. Immediately after the publication of IEEE 802.11ac in March 2013, the IEEE 802.11 Working Group (WG) established Study Group (SG) High Efficiency WLAN (HEW)
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