Why you need to upgrade to Wi-Fi 6

David Fortini

November 25, 2019

Wi-Fi 6 delivers the experience your customers deserve with faster transfer speeds, better performance, a wider area of coverage and longer battery life.

The question being asked by IT enterprises around the world today is—why should I upgrade to Wi-Fi 6? The answer is really quite simple—to improve your customer experience.  After all, it should always be about your customers’ experience.

In a nutshell, Wi-Fi 6 promises faster transfer speeds, better performance in dense client environments, a wider area of coverage and longer battery life. That’s really everything you need to know.

However, if you are curious, you might be interested to learn that current benchmark tests indicate that Wi-Fi 6 is 40% faster than Wi-Fi 5 with transfer speeds of 1,320Mbps, and it delivers 1000% quicker download speeds than the average Wi-Fi 5 download speeds of 119Mbps. For networks with a large number of devices that tend to bog down the network, Wi-Fi 6 might just be what you’ve been waiting for.

If your customer base is in a high density area and made up of a bunch of folks who love to stream video, Wi-Fi 6 will be life changing for you and your customers. With more bandwidth on a wider channel, Wi-Fi 6 prevents fragmented and altered downloads even in highly dense coverage areas. And, faster connection between devices and access points can enhance your customers’ experience by as much as four times. As well, Wi-Fi 6 provides eight more data streams than Wi-Fi 5 which means more devices can be simultaneously connected to the same access point with higher bandwidth which enhances the quality of service on the network while reducing maintenance and operational costs. Fewer pieces of equipment means less to take care of, and less to repair.

But what about interference from neighboring networks? Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has a solution for that. The Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess® Stellar 1320 and 1360 Access Points automatically detect nearby external WLANs and ensure your access points are protected and will not access other WLANs. Built for Wi-Fi 6, OmniAccess Stellar APs minimize conflicts and interference with neighboring networks and guarantees coexistence in highly dense deployments.

The battery life of your connected devices on your WLAN, especially those devices in remote or hard to access areas is a very real concern. Wi-Fi 6 introduces an energy savings feature called Target Wake Time (TWT). This feature reduces energy consumption by maximizing traffic efficiency and avoiding duplication when sending information over the WLAN which can prolong battery life and durability.

Learn more about how Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Stellar Wi-Fi 6 Access Points can improve your customers’ experience.