We wanted to see with our own eyes the effect of the various innovative technologies used in WiFi 6 and how it affects the end-user experience.
We compared WiFi 6 devices with the previous 5th generation WiFi devices. WiFi access points or access points were under testing. We did not change any devices other than APs during the test.
In our test we used a WiFi 6 (ax standard) access point Ruckus R750 and a WiFi 5 (ac standard) access point Ruckus R720. We used an HP server with a 10G network card as the server, and the client device was a laptop with an ax ax-compliant network card Intel ax200. It should be noted that the speeds in WiFi6 are already so high that this test cannot be performed without a 10G network card - the cable network will be too slow!
We performed the tests at the same location in a short time, the access points also had identical settings.
This test has been performed between one client device and the AP, but the real progress of Wi-Fi 6 can be seen when there are many clients connected to the AP at the same time. The OFDMA modulation technique used in WiFi 6 allows multiple clients to communicate simultaneously. This increases the number of clients per access point to 500 (real number, theoretical 1000). Also, hundreds of users are not in trouble moving their low traffic when one user transmits a large amount of data.
Next month, we'll get some 11ax Wi-Fi 6 flaps and show how OFDMA modulation and very low latency work in reality when the load is high.
If the laptop is connected to the coverage area created by the WiFi 5 device, the Windows command 'netsh wlan show all' will also indicate the standard used.
SSID 1 : speedtest Network type : Infrastructure Signal : 99% Radio type : 802.11ac
If your WiFi device is an R750, you can immediately see it on your computer:
SSID 1 : speedtest Network type : Infrastructure Signal : 96% Radio type : 802.11ax
In addition to using a different standard, Windows also shows the estimated link speed. For WiFi 5, this is 866.7 Mbps:
However, at WiFi 6 the speed is 1.5 times higher, up to 1.2Gbps:
To evaluate the real user experience and WiFi speed, we used the popular iperf3 test, which can measure the data transfer rate between two devices. During the test, as much data as possible is transferred between the two devices according to the predefined settings. Everyone can download the software used for testing here.
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.05 GBytes 901 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 1.05 GBytes 899 Mbits/sec receiver
R720 nõukar
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 839 MBytes 703 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 837 MBytes 702 Mbits/sec receiver
R750 Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 4c:b1:cd:13:f5:1c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ax
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Profile
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 1201
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 1201
Signal : 84%
Profile : kiirusetest
R720
Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 8c:fe:74:22:52:8c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ac
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Auto Connect
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 866.7
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 866.7
Signal : 98%
Profile : kiirusetest
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 904 MBytes 758 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 903 MBytes 758 Mbits/sec receiver
R720 TOM laud
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 433 MBytes 364 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 433 MBytes 364 Mbits/sec receiver
R750: Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 4c:b1:cd:13:f5:1c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ax
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Profile
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 1081
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 1081
Signal : 85%
Profile : kiirusetest
R720
Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 8c:fe:74:22:52:8c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ac
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Auto Connect
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 433.3
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 433.3
Signal : 81%
Profile : kiirusetest
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 355 MBytes 298 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 355 MBytes 298 Mbits/sec receiver
R720
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 276 MBytes 232 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 276 MBytes 232 Mbits/sec receiver
R750 Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 4c:b1:cd:13:f5:1c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ax
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Profile
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 432
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 432
Signal : 67%
Profile : kiirusetest
R720
Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 8c:fe:74:22:52:8c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ac
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Auto Connect
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 390
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 390
Signal : 54%
Profile : kiirusetest
R750
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 16.6 MBytes 13.9 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 15.4 MBytes 12.9 Mbits/sec receiver
R720
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 8.00 MBytes 6.71 Mbits/sec sender
[SUM] 0.00-10.00 sec 345 KBytes 283 Kbits/sec receiver
R750
Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 4c:b1:cd:13:f5:1c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ax
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Auto Connect
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 17
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 17
Signal : 10%
Profile : kiirusetest
R720
Name : Wi-Fi 3
Description : Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz
GUID : e360f0c6-1d39-4033-872b-c08a5f3db3f0
Physical address : 50:e0:85:f3:6b:c3
State : connected
SSID : kiirusetest
BSSID : 8c:fe:74:22:52:8c
Network type : Infrastructure
Radio type : 802.11ac
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Auto Connect
Channel : 116
Receive rate (Mbps) : 19.5
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 19.5
Signal : 15%
Profile : kiirusetest