As seen in the introduction for 802.11ax (here), the major change that was introduced in 802.11ax (WiFi 6) was the introduction of multi-user transmission in a single transmit frame and OFDMA. Some of the other major changes in PHY as related to the previous generation WiFi 5 are tabulated below
| 802.11ac (WiFi 6) | 802.11ax (Wifi 6/e) | |
| Band | 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz | 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz |
| Channel Band-width | 20,40, 80, 80+80 and 160 MHz | 20, 40, 80, 80+80 and 160 MHz |
| Highest Modulation | 256 QAM | 1024 QAM |
| OFDM Symbol duration | 3.2 uS + 0.8/0.4 uS Cyclic Prefix | 12.8 uS + 0.8/1.6/3.2 uS Cyclic Prefix |
| Sub-carrier Spacing | 312.5 KHz | 78.125 KHz |
| Highest Data rate | 6933.3 Mb/s | 9607.8 Mb/s |
| spread spectrum supported | OFDM | OFDM, OFDMA |
We will look at some of the salient features of WiFi 6 standard in the coming articles
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