How Wi-Fi 6 can enhance the return to work experience

If you’re one of the many businesses staggering returning to the office full time or adopting hybrid working, you’ll need to ensure your network has the power to support an increase in video, voice and streaming needs.

With a reimagining of office and work life, productivity, collaboration and customer service are much more dependent on a strong network. Simultaneous video meetings, VoIP/PBX, cloud collaboration – without sufficient bandwidth everything will grind to a frustrating trickle.

And it’s not just hybrid working that has been challenging connectivity. Many businesses have used the time away from the office to do some much needed refurbishments, or to relocate to a new place. If you fall into that band, you may have some physical factors causing interference. It could be something visible such as metal furniture and tinted glass, or something more conspicuous such as insulation, concrete and aesthetic wall panelling.

Optimum efficiency requires optimum connectivity.

How Wi-Fi 6 will transform workplace connectivity

This is where Wi-Fi 6 comes in. The latest iteration of ultra-fast and reliable Wi-Fi technology is a perfect fit for returning to work and hybrid environments.

Faster data throughput

Wi-Fi 6 delivers faster speeds compared to the previous generations of Wi Fi. It’s capable of delivering a throughput speed of 9.6 Gbps, that’s a big difference with Wi-Fi 5 delivering 3.5 Gbps. This will benefit employees collaborating via video conferencing or using VoIP/PBX which generally requires a high bandwidth – especially when there a multiple meetings and calls happening at once.

Greater security

Wi-Fi 6 comes with a significant security update which is one of the main benefits, particularly due to the introduction of WPA3 which includes 192-bit encryption. Because of its flexible, simple and scalable architecture, it’s able to be incorporated well into end-to-end architectures. With cyber-attacks increasing and evolving in sophistication since remote working was first introduced, WI-FI 6 has the ability to respond to the changing threat landscape.

Higher capacity

Existing Wi-Fi standards only communicated with devices one at a time, that’s not the case with Wi-Fi 6. In fact, Wi-Fi 6 communicates in parallel with devices which means up to four times more devices can be attached compared to previous standards. Increased capacity is crucial with mobile data traffic set to grow 4x more over the next four years.

Longer lasting battery

One of Wi-Fi 6’ key features is ‘Target Wake Time’ which means devices will be more power efficient in conversing battery life. Essentially, the feature allows devices to set how long or often the devices need to transmit and receive data. This then puts the transponder on the device to sleep when transmission isn’t required. So devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets and IoT devices will last longer compared with previous standards. Great for employees that are working on the go!

To learn more about Wi-Fi 6 and how our team can onboard you to the latest standard of Wi-Fi, contact our team today.