44 Macworld • January 2022iPHONE
get on the 5GHz band of Wi-Fi 6
(9.6Gb/s), but you’re much more likely
to one day test those limits with the
big spacious 6GHz spectrum.
Wi-Fi 6E also uses more antennas.
With Wi-Fi 6 on the iPhone 13,
Apple uses 2X2 MIMO (Multiple-
Input Multiple-Output), which is a
two-antenna configuration with two
receiver antennas. Wi-Fi 6E could
double that capability to 4X4, which
would increase the bandwidth and
download speed.LESS INTERFERENCE
MEANS BETTER
RELIABILITY
The other big selling point of Wi-Fi
6E is that there’s nothing else in
that range contending with it. With
Wi-Fi 6’s 2.5- and 5GHz spectrums
have to fight with a ton of old Wi-Fi
networks, microwave ovens, you
name it, Wi-Fi 6E enjoys a bunch of
big, wide channels. There are other
technologies broadcasting in the
6GHz frequency range, but with so
many big channels to work with,
automated frequency control should
be able to easily take care of it.
Higher frequencies tend to mean
lower latency, too, so your Wi-FI
could get closer to wired networking
responsiveness. There’s a downside,of course: higher frequencies also
don’t travel as far or through walls as
well, so Wi-Fi 6E doesn’t necessarily
offer any improvements to range over
regular Wi-Fi 6.WHEN IS WI-FI 6E COMING?
It’s already here. You can buy Wi-Fi
6E routers today from companies
like Linksys or Netgear. Of course,
they’re very new and very expensive,
and they’re only going to help if the
devices you connect to them also
support Wi-Fi 6E. And most of them
don’t, including the most recent
iPhones, iPads and Macs.
Apple isn’t always the first to
support a new Wi-Fi technology, but
it doesn’t wait very long. With the
Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra already
ushering Wi-Fi 6E support on Android
phones, there’s a very good chance
that the iPhone 14 will support Wi-
Fi 6E. Higher-end Macs and iPads
released in 2023 stand a very good
chance of supporting it as well as
Apple gets on board with the latest
in wireless technology.
So if you’re looking to update your
router, you might want to wait a bit for
the Wi-Fi 6E routers to come down in
price. Wi-Fi 6 is great but Wi-Fi 6E is
even better.