Can we expect both 802.11ax and 802.11ay in 2019?

[iwod]

AX is about to pass the final Draft. AY is getting Draft 2.0 in September.

Edit: Just found out TP-Link show off two of their new AX router, interestingly enough most of the news are in Chinese or German, nothing in English yet.

 

[HowIFix]

And in the 2020 a forced hardware update that corrects 99% of the hundreds of bugs of the first version.

 

[thiggins]

AX is about to pass the final Draft. Edit: Just found out TP-Link show off two of their new AX router, interestingly enough most of the news are in Chinese or German, nothing in English yet.

How do you know it is the final draft?
The first draft 11ax products will be shipping before the end of this year.

AY is getting Draft 2.0 in September.

I have no information on any product plans for this technology.

 

[sfx2000]

AX is about to pass the final Draft. AY is getting Draft 2.0 in September.

There's been some pre-launch hints for 802.11ax gear - draft spec, so who knows...

11ay - since this is an update to 11ad - it's likely going to hit the same use-cases for close range stuff...

(11ay is 60GHz, so very close range, like same room - at 60GHz, a piece of paper can block the signal)

 

[iwod]

How do you know it is the final draft?
The first draft 11ax products will be shipping before the end of this year.

At least that is what they intend Draft 4.0 to be, the final one. And likely to ship it as 1.0

Lately It has become an IEEE tradition to quickly release spec v1.1, 1.2 after the first release. There are still 2200+ comments unaddressed in 802.11ax, I doubt Draft 4.0 will lower than number much. ( Draft 1.0 , 2.0 , 3.0 all had similar comments )

And in the 2020 a forced hardware update that corrects 99% of the hundreds of bugs of the first version.

The sad thing is that may likely true.

 

[iwod]

Just checked Draft 4.0 had 500+ Comment resolved, and we will be getting Draft 5.0 in March. It is nice they are not forcing any of these Draft status due to commercial pressure. They intend Draft 5.0 to be final draft but then who knows... we have been hearing this long enough. And hardware ( Samsung S10 ) are selling as well speak. Final publication expected in June 2020.

Finally. 802.11ay still seems far from ready though.

 

[Boomerang63]

@iwod: you seem to know about what you are writing.

I think that the 802.11ax speed benefit cannot be achieved without additional accessible channels in 5 GHz and 6 GHz range because much of the increased speed possibility needs 80MHz or 80+80MHz channel bundling because clients will not get more than 2 antennas in the very near future.
These additional channels cannot be accessed with additional rules and without negotiation with industry. Since Q4/2018 these channel rules started to be discussed in 802.11ax IEEE org.
I think that WIFI6 discussions about 6GHz band implementation rules need some additional time, but 802.11ax Draft5 using current channels will hit market this summer.

Currently we have only 19 20MHz channels in 5GHz band available in EU UNII1/2a/parts of 2c and together with 3 or 4 2,4 GHz channels we have 22-23 available 20 MHz channels.

In US 25 20MHz channels are available and UNII2b and UNI3 bands are discussed to be accessable. Under certain circumstances there would be 37 20MHz channels available only within the 5GHz band; if the three 2,4 GHz channels are counted,we achieve 40 20Mhz channels within current US WIFI.
If the 6GHz band will be opened, then another 48 channels will become available (UNI4/5/6/7) that would sum up to 88 x 20 MHz channels alltogether 44 x 40MHz channels with 600Mbps@2SS or 22 x 80MHz channels with 1,2Gbps@2SS

Supposed that 2SS (spatial streams = antennas) will be the maximum installed at client side 802.11ax could achieve approx. 1 Gbps throughput via WIFI6 in normal office environments if clients use one of 22 possible 80MHz channels with 2SS. In less density environmants as small business offices ther would then be 22 possible 160MHz channels with 2,4 Gbps WLAN speed that is twice the nowadays GbE LAN speed.
Workstations or Backup NAS stations could be connected with 4SS 160MHz channels with maximum 4,8 Gbps if WLAN connectivity is neccesary.

I'm sure that industry has to give an answer to rise connection speed via CAT7 cables to at least 25/40 Gbps to reach USB3 gen2 or TB2/3 speed via Ethernet to keep pace with upcoming WIFI6 speeds.

I think that there has to be one additional simplifying step to be taken. Each client might be able to form its 40/80/160 MHz channel not only through neighboring subchannels but like the 80+80 definition uses 80 MHz channels different than a real 160MHz channel, there should be the possibility to form an 80 MHz channel by negotiating to use 4 randomly chosen 20MHz channels (20+20+20+20) Any of these subchannels should be possible to be changed if connection quality changes or client population rises.

And in 2,4 GHz band only channels 1/6/11 could be set in US and 1/5/9/13 could be set in EU. And no homeuser admin should ever be able to switch his route to odd channels as 2/3/4/5 or 7/8/9/10 in US or 2/3/4 or 6/7/8 or 10/11/12 in EU.

And 3rd) Routers should detect other routers automatically in a building and adjust beamforming and channel setting. Routers could learn from clients because they move around and could have information about signal strength of different in house WIFI6 routers on different channels.

My personal view is, that Draft 4.0 Chipsets (Routers from ASUS, Netgear, Aerohive, TPlink, Aruba, DLink, Cisco based on Qualcom, Intel Broadcom Chipsets) may be firmware updated to Draft 5.0 and Final version.

First mini PCIe versions are announced being shipped in HP Omen notebooks (Realtek) in Q2.2019
I'm curious, if mini PCIe 802.11ax cards will be available for upgrading existing notebooks.

Boomerang

 

[Internet Man]

First mini PCIe versions are announced being shipped in HP Omen notebooks (Realtek) in Q2.2019
I'm curious, if mini PCIe 802.11ax cards will be available for upgrading existing notebooks.

My interpretation of the news on this topic is that 802.11ax will be an option in the 2019 HP OMEN and the standard 802.11ac card will be from Realtek but there are no details about the manufacturer of the 802.11ax card. I can't imagine that the Wi-Fi 6 card would be anything other than an Intel (or Killer branded Intel clone) card. They will probably be M.2 NGFF not Mini PCIe.