An analyst report indicates likely iPhone 15 6E Wi-Fi support this year — giving at least some of this year’s iPhones access to a whole new frequency band.
If correct, this would indicate increased capacity, reduced interference, and better video streaming performance…
Socket support iPhone 15 Wi-Fi 6E
MacRumeurs saw a research note from Barclays that suggested Apple is bringing support for the new standard to the iPhone 15 – although it didn’t say if it was the whole range or only two Pro models.
Apple has already integrated the Wi-Fi 6E standard into the latest iPad Pro models, the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, and the new Mac mini.
Confused denomination
As is often the case with technical standards, the naming is confusing.
Wi-Fi originally only worked in the 2.4 GHz band. This offers limited speeds and is prone to interference from things like microwaves.
The first major development was to add access to the 5Ghz band. This provides significantly higher capacity, less susceptibility to interference, lower latency, and faster speeds. The most recent change was the addition of the 6 GHz band.
You might think that devices that support Wi-Fi 6 would provide access to 6GHz Wi-Fi, but no, that would make too much sense. Access to 6Ghz spectrum requires Wi-Fi 6 support Improvedmore commonly referred to as Wi-Fi 6E.
Benefits of Wi-Fi 6E
The 6 GHz spectrum offers a number of advantages over 5 GHz. First, it offers a plot more capacity. This indicates less congestion in cities and allows for wider channels, which provides better connections for video streaming and virtual reality. Efficient Wi-Fi 6E quadruple capacity, as it offers 14 additional channels at 80 MHz and seven new channels at 160 MHz.
Second, there is no interference with anything else as the 6 GHz band is reserved exclusively for WiFi.
Third, the channels can be wider, indicating greater bandwidth for video streaming and other data-intensive applications like virtual reality. Speeds can exceed 1 GB and latency can be less than a millisecond.
Disadvantages of Wi-Fi 6E
It’s not all good news, unfortunately. First, you’ll probably need a new router to take advantage of this. Very few current wireless routers support Wi-Fi 6E, so you’ll likely need to upgrade.
Second, Wi-Fi 6E has a shorter range than older Wi-Fi 6 and is also more easily blocked by physical structures. So if you live in a house with thick walls, performance may suffer. You may also find that Wi-Fi 6E coverage doesn’t extend as far outside your home, into yards and gardens.
That’s not much of a problem in practice, however, as coverage simply drops back into the 5GHz range.
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The report seems pretty vague, and we’ve already been burned by reports that indicated Wi-Fi 6E was coming to the iPhone 14.
That said, given that Apple has already upgraded the radio chips in the latest iPads and Macs, extending the same capabilities to this year’s Pro model iPhones seems like a safe bet. It’s less certain that non-Pro models will get the same upgrade.
Photo : Alessandra Wolfsberger/Unsplash
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