802.11ax Access Points Will Ease WiFi Congestion

Busy public or office areas often suffer from slow WiFi due to the number of users and their combined download demands often overwhelming the network and routers. However, rolling out now, 802.11ax access points will help relieve these issues and make for higher quality, enterprise, education and public WiFi access.

Aiming for 10Gbps of throughput, the official release of 802.11ax access points isn’t due until 2019 but the very early “ax-compatible” products to hit the market can deliver half of that. The key benefit of the standard is the ability to deliver fast and reliable WiFi in crowded locations with up to four times the throughput of current standards thanks to the more efficient use of available radio spectrum.

Smarter radio usage means happier users

A range of technologies and software features built into new baseband processors help to boost performance, even though the actual data rates are only around a third-higher than existing standards. Features such as dynamic data packet sizes mean no more wasted bandwidth sending near-empty packets to devices.

Also, so-called “colouring” of network transmissions means that the router can “see” other networks in the area and can still broadcast on frequencies where they would have previously clashed. All of this should result in higher quality connections and more efficient use of bandwidth.

For customers with campus-wide WiFi installations, users can benefit from signals from multiple transmitters to deliver the strongest signal and fastest data rates. We expect 802.11ax access points to gain in popularity over 2018 as the official launch date nears. Check back for product availability and upgrade information to help your workers or users benefit from enterprise WiFi using Aerohive products.

Aerohive plans to add machine learning technology to their access points to improve performance further through features like smart changing of polarity of antennas, and the ability to jump channels depending on the local RF environment. All of which should make your public or business network faster and help users work more efficiently, no matter how many there are, or how high their bandwidth demands become in the years to come.

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