A wireless world with 5G and Wi-Fi 6

The two wireless communities, one led by telecom industry and another by the computer industry are ready to provide their next
generation wireless connectivity 5G and Wi-Fi 6. Both these technologies are not same. The wireless 5G is a new cellular technology
designed for mobile devices, while Wi-Fi 6 is a new wireless LAN (WLAN) technology that expands the previous standard and also
compatible with same. You'll find that wireless 5G is most commonly associated with cellular data, while Wi-Fi 6 is most commonly
associated with your home and office network. Here, the things to know about Wi-Fi 6 and 5G: (a) Both 5G and Wi-Fi 6 are complementary
technologies and built from the same foundation and will co-exist to support different use cases. (b) Wi-Fi 6 will continue to be the access
choice for indoor networks like offices, buildings, halls stadiums etc. (c) 5G will be the designated choice for outdoor networks like travelling
on high speed trains, cars etc. (d) Wi-Fi 6 and 5G are suitable for many industries like mission-critical IoT devices being used in
manufacturing, transportation, healthcare, energy, gaming and many others.

Over these last 20 years of wireless evolution, we have seen the parallel, uncoordinated evolution of computer driven wireless (basically the
IEEE 802.11 standards) and the telecom driven wireless evolution (basically the 3GPP standards). The 5G architecture is designed to
cooperate and provide seamless integration of Wi-Fi by transferring the session control to the device, like the smart phone (operators will
be willing to hand over the session control to terminals, It will quite a different story).

Now, the 5G is no more far off from us (a few are claiming it is already here but I beg to differ) and it will bring very little perceivable
changes to 99% of what we are doing. You will be very hard to tell if you are talking using 5G or 4G or 3G. Actually, it will be unlikely that
you will be using 5G when making a voice call! 4G initially did not support voice calls, it was limited to data connection, than operators
started to implement VoLTE (Voice over LTE) and we started also talking using 4G (but we couldn’t tell the difference). Same will happen
with 5G. Actually, VoLTE as a way to move towards Vo5G (Voice over 5G). Notice, by the way, that a portion of our voice calls are actually a
data calls. That is the example when using Skype, WhatsApp, Zoom and other likes that.

So, it should not come as a surprise that we will be start using 5G for data communications (that by the way is what we normally do with
our smart phone!) and in data communications the most perceivable advantages will derive from small cells, since these are the ones that
will support higher bandwidth, and we will be able to appreciate the difference.
Of course the problem with small cells is that... they are small, so it takes quite a bit of investment to cover a large area. Indoor, the story is
different, since indoor you are forced to have small cells. However, indoor is the place where we also use Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi is not sitting still
waiting to be taken over by 5G.

4G is now common throughout the world, but things are about to change again. The Internet of Things (IoT) is now a real possibility and 4G
will not be able to manage the huge number of connections that will be on the network. It is expected that there will be more than 20
billion connected devices by 2020, all of which will require a connection with great capacity. This is where 5G comes into force.

How makes 5G so different from 4G?

Simply, 5G is widely believed to be smarter, faster and more efficient than 4G. It promises mobile data speeds that far outstrip the fastest
home broadband network currently available to consumers. With speeds of up to 100Gbps, 5G is set to be as much as 100 times faster than
4G.

Low latency is a key differentiator between 4G and 5G. Latency is the time that passes from the moment information is sent from a device
until it can be used by the receiver. Additionally, you would be able to download and upload files quickly and easily, without having to worry
about the network or phone suddenly disconnecting. You would also be able to watch a 4K video almost straight away without having to
experience any buffering time.
5G will be able to fix bandwidth issues. Currently, there are so many different devices connected to 3G and 4G networks that they don’t
have the infrastructure to much effective. 5G will be able to handle current devices and emerging technologies such as driverless cars,
connected home products and online gaming.
But it must remember that these scenarios are all still theoretical, and it will take a lot of investment by governments and mobile network
operators to make them work. The security aspect of 5G also still needs to be figured out. With a greater number of users and improved
services, 5G opens the door to a new level of threat. Governments and mobile operators must ensure they have the correct level of security
in place before 5G can be rolled out.

Now, the Wi-Fi 5 has already deployed, that is IEEE 802.11ac that on the 5GHz band can reach 1.7Gbps of bandwidth. Now the next
generation of Wi-Fi is being promoted in now, with Wi-Fi 6 as the foundation. Wi-Fi 6 is based on the new IEEE 802.11ax standard, is about
ready, it should arrive in a few months, and support a bandwidth of 4.8Gbps over the 5GHz band and 1.1 Gbps over the 2.4GHz band. You
can get a nice overview of Wi-Fi evolution and of the coming Wi-Fi 6 here.

Although Wi-Fi 6 will become the standard for PCs, tablets and smart phones in the coming years, it is most likely that it will be firstly
adopted by building hosting offices, where increased bandwidth provide a stronger advantage.

Key benefits of Wi-Fi 6 are (a) Faster overall transfer speeds to and from devices; (b) More capacity for connected devices; (c) Better
performance with many connected devices; (d) Less device battery drain when connected; (e) WPA3 providing the latest in security;

A nice characteristics of Wi-Fi 6 is that its coding mechanisms is less sensitive to interference (hence it is able to sustain higher bit rates
even when several Wi-Fi areas overlap) and is less power hungry, thus extending our devices battery life. It also uses a better MIMO version
(Multiple Input Multiple Output) that supports multiple bi-directional communications (today’s Wi-Fi support only multiple downloading at
the same time but not multiple uploading requests). Like for 5G, today there are only very few devices and network gateways that support
Wi-Fi 6 but by the end of 2019 their number is bound to explode.
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How make Wi-Fi 6 different from previous Wi-Fi standards?
Wi-Fi 6 devices connected to Wi-Fi 6 routers the gains up to about 40 percent compared to Wi-Fi 5 devices and routers. This is achieved
due to Wi-Fi 6 being able to pack more data into each packet, and it will work on both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. A larger benefit,
however, is revealed when there are multiple devices connected to the same network. If you've ever stayed in a hotel or have connected to
Wi-Fi at a coffee shop, you know how slow throughput can be due to the main access point attempting to handle all simultaneous
connections.

In a write-up on Intel's IT Peer Network, it's claimed that Wi-Fi 6 will improve the efficiency of a single network by about four times, which
will, in turn, improve average throughput for those connected to Wi-Fi 6 in heavily congested areas by about four times. Wi-Fi 6 continues
and expands on the MU-MIMO trend released with Wi-Fi 5, which allows a Wi-Fi radio to deliver data simultaneously to multiple devices
instead of in a rotating manner. Instead of handling four simultaneous streams, Wi-Fi 6 ups the number to eight.

In addition of target wake time (TWT) in Wi-Fi 6, all connected devices should see significantly less battery drain. Compatible devices and
routers will communicate key wake and sleep times, which means less up time for an adapter and less pull on a battery. Not only is this
important for everyday devices like laptops — Intel's 9th Gen processors (CPU) include support for Wi-Fi 6 and modern phones like the
Samsung Galaxy S10, it will also make a difference as we see more Internet of Things (IoT) products enter our homes and businesses.

Parallel Communications
Both downlink and uplink OFDMA are mandatory features for 802.11ax (although it seems likely that pre-standard equipment from some
vendors will omit uplink OFDMA). They are very similar in operation: the AP grooms’ traffic on the downlink, transmitting to several clients
in parallel.
Additions to the preamble allow clients to understand which OFDMA group to listen to and demodulate. Uplink OFDMA lets each client
transmit in its own OFDMA group, while the AP receives several clients in parallel. But the control for uplink OFDMA is complicated. The AP
coordinates which clients will transmit in any interval, and assigns each a data-rate and transmit power. But first, it must learn what clients
wish to send, by requesting buffer reports. Then it sends a downlink trigger frame defining the structure of the subsequent uplink OFDMA
data frame.
And, for good reception, client transmissions must be tightly synchronized in time and must arrive at the AP at similar power levels,
requiring sophisticated control. The structure of multi-user control frames in 802.11ax is too complicated to explain here – both OFDMA
and multi-user MIMO are used to parallelize control traffic wherever possible, as multi-user overhead was recognized as a problem during
the rollout of 802.11ac.

Ideal for IoT, Video, and Factory Automation Applications

Multiplexing packets one after the other, as in 802.11ac, can increase latency and jitter, especially when legacy clients send long-duration
packets at low rates: low-bandwidth traffic has to wait its turn. But OFDMA allows many low-bandwidth streams to transmit in parallel,
reducing latency and jitter. Reduced latency is an important requirement for some IoT, video, and factory automation applications that
802.11ax can now address.

Author’s Profiles
Arvind Kumar, Manager - Embedded System, R&D, Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd.

In his current role, He is responsible for overseeing Wi-Fi product design and engineering.

He has rich experience in embedded architecture design and engineering in research and development department. Previously, He was
engaged with Railway, Metros, Telecom, Geotechnical, IoT, Telemetry, Retail and Transactions (Point of Sale Hand Held Terminal)
applications and Educational Lab Instruments.

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