6GHz for WiFi brings bandwidth and economic benefits. Stuart Corner explains what it means for integrators.

Most of us use WiFi, every day. And that’s what we call it: Simply ‘WiFi’. But that simple moniker hides a history of technology evolution that started in 1997 when the IEEE ratified the first WiFi standard, designating it 803.11e.

However, it was 1999 with the launch of the Apple Airport, one of the first consumer-grade WiFi base stations, when WiFi really made its debut, thanks to Apple’s global reach and high consumer profile.

WiFi has come a long way since then: In take-up and technology. Most in-home data consumption is now over WiFi and growing rapidly. According to NBN, average downloads over its network will double in the next seven to eight years, and uploads within the next four years. NBN cites other research predicting that the average household has 25 connected devices and the number will rise to 44 by 2030. In addition, it says the latest technology uses up to 24 times more data than current standard applications.

WiFi technology has evolved significantly to enable it to support these huge increases in data volumes and device density, both of which put greater demands on the radiofrequency spectrum it uses. We are now up to WiFi8 (IEEE 802.11bn, coming in 2028), but one recent version, WiFi6e (802.11ax), is particularly important and generating much controversy.

WiFi moves to 6GHz

WiFi6e (the e stands for ‘extended’) is the first version to use spectrum in the 6GHz band. David Coleman, director of wireless in the office of the chief technology officer of WiFi equipment manufacturer, Extreme Networks, describes the use of 6GHz spectrum as: “The biggest paradigm shift in the last 15 years for the entire WiFi industry.”

He tells Connected that 6GHz “opens up all kinds of opportunities, because the frequency space that is becoming available is much more than we’ve previously had… And it’s never been used for WiFi. So it’s a clean, pristine RF environment… At 6GHz, we’re already seeing some industries like healthcare figuring out they are better off running mission-critical applications in 6GHz, where there’s more spectrum and it’s cleaner spectrum.”

At 6GHz, WiFi6e operates over much larger channels, up to 320MHz versus 80MHz at 5GHz, and there will be much less competition for spectrum resources from millions of other WiFi devices.

“Whenever you open up new frequency space, innovation happens. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are overhyped applications, but they are going to be coming into enterprises more and more. And they’re going to thrive on WiFi. They’re not going to thrive on cellular; I can tell you that right now,” David says.

The original WiFi standard operated at 2.4GHz and had a maximum data rate of 11Mbps. In subsequent versions, that data rate rose to 600Mbps, then to 6.9Gbps and to 9.6Gbps in WiFi6. WiFi7 (802.11be) takes the data rate to 46Gbps. Routers and base stations supporting WiFi7 are now readily available, but support in end devices is still limited.

WiFi7 gains further advantage from the 6GHz spectrum. WiFi6e, like all earlier versions, uses only one channel at a time. WiFi7 makes greater use of the additional spectrum available at 6GHz. It supports multilink operation, which means a WiFi7 device can use multiple frequency bands and channels simultaneously, aggregating these into a single logical connection. This increases bandwidth and reduces latency – important for real time applications like gaming.

While the latest base stations support WiFi6e, the same cannot be said of all end user devices.

“The good news is almost every smartphone that’s come out in the last few years has a 6GHz radio. It’s the same with laptops, but I can’t say the same for TVs,” David says.

“The higher-end models have the 6GHz radios… But, for whatever reason, the television manufacturers are not putting 6GHz radios in their cheaper models yet.”

The battle for WiFi spectrum

However, there is a bigger problem potentially limiting the benefits 6GHz spectrum can offer WiFi users. WiFi technology must be allowed to operate in the 6GHz spectrum, and competition for that spectrum is stiff, particularly from cellular mobile telephone network operators.

By international agreement, the 6GHz band spans 5,925MHz to 7,125MHz, but within that band, different countries and regions have assigned spectrum to different applications.

In Australia, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the body responsible for spectrum management, made the lower portion of the 6GHz band (5,925MHz to 6,425MHz) available for uses that include WiFi in 2022. It has just increased that to 5,925MHz–6,525MHz, rejecting prolonged industry lobbying for WiFi to gain access to the entire 6GHz band. Their latest allocation is specified in the ACMA’s Radiocommunications (Low Interference Potential Devices) Class Licence 2025, issued in September.

The upper portion of the band (6,525-7,100MHz) will be reserved for wide area wireless broadband (WA WBB) in yet to be defined metro areas/regional centres.

WA WBB embraces cellular, fixed wireless access, satellite and microwave links. This is different from the US, which has allocated the whole of the 6GHz band WiFi, for now, and from other nations.

These differences, David says, can cause problems for vendors: “It makes things very complicated for a company like Extreme Networks. It’s hard for us to make decisions on the access points we build and in terms of what we’re going to support, because the rules get even more complex.”

Vendors’ spectrum challenges

“It’s not just the available spectrum, but it’s the rules regarding power and antennas… When our first WiFi6 access points became available, we shipped them to Australia with the 6GHz radio turned off, but as soon as that lower 6GHz band became available in Australia, a simple firmware update turned it on,” David explains.

Differences in 6GHz spectrum allocation in different regions raise the possibility that vendors might choose not to make equipment compatible with the spectrum in a small market like Australia, but Coleman said that would certainly not be the case for Extreme Networks, nor, he expected, for other vendors.

Others do not agree. When the ACMA first flagged adding the extra 100MHz in the 6GHz band to WiFi, in its December 2024  Future use of the upper 6 GHz band Outcomes paper, WiFi engineer and blogger, Charles Clare, wrote on his blog: “[Australia] will be the first country to break the spectrum up like this… I am sure this will create vendor software issues and compatibility issues between vendors… We did not need more market and vendor confusion. I cannot see vendor support for these frequency upgrades in the short term.”

Sustained lobbying

There is a UK-based wireless industry lobby group, the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance (DSA), that for several years, has taken a great interest in the ACMA’s spectrum allocation deliberations, specifically spectrum for WiFi.

In a statement issued in 2022, its president, Martha Suarez, said: “Many people have already experienced WiFi congestion in densely populated areas or even in the connected family home… Without more WiFi spectrum, even the recently announced 500MHz of spectrum [5,925MHz to 6,425MHz] will not be enough. In a few short years, Australians will once again be subject to WiFi congestion.”

In May 2023, the DSA again wrote to the ACMA calling on it to “move forward with making the entire 6GHz band available for class-licensed RLAN (i.e. WiFi) operations as soon as possible.”

It then followed up, in August 2024, with a blockbuster: A 105-page report commissioned from Telecom Advisory Services (TSA): Assessment the economic value of 6GHz spectrum band in Australia.

DSA had calculated that allocation of the full 6GHz band to WiFi would make a contribution to Australia’s GDP over the ten years to 2034 of US$1.22 billion (AU$1.87 billion at current exchange rates). With only the lower 500MHz band allocated to WiFi, TSA estimated the GDP contribution would fall to US$963.4 million (AU$1.48 billion).

This is peanuts compared to the claimed benefits in the USA, where the Wireless Forward organisation has been lobbying aggressively to keep the full 1,200MHz of the 6GHz spectrum (5,925 to 7,125MHz) allocated to uses that include WiFi.

The worth of WiFi spectrum

Earlier this year, WiFi Forward claimed that its modelling: “Shows that full availability of the entire 6GHz band unlocks US$2.94 trillion in aggregate value over 2025-2027, whereas a lower band cap would capture barely 40% of that figure and forfeit US$1.74 trillion in the same period.”

To drive the message home, it added: “No other single telecommunications policy lever presently under consideration carries a comparable, near-term impact on national GDP, consumer benefit, and producer margins. Cutting the band would therefore impose an avoidable drag on productivity growth precisely when US firms are accelerating digital transformation and reshoring advanced manufacturing.”

If we translate those figures to Australia using the two countries’ 2024 GDPs, we arrive at an aggregate value over 2025-2027 of US$180 billion for full band access in Australia versus US$104 billion for only lower 500MHz access. And remember, these estimated benefits were only for the three years 2025-2027.

The fight for spectrum between the WiFi and cellular industries and their respective lobby groups is ongoing, but David offers an interesting perspective: “Globally, 90% of all smartphone data runs over WiFi. That is ten times more WiFi traffic than all cellular network traffic combined.

“The truth of the matter is: The cellular mobile operators depend on WiFi. If, all of a sudden, all that smartphone data switched from WiFi networks to the cellular networks, it would bring them to a crawl.”