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Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss Microsoft’s Hololens and the military, an upcoming Apple being spoiled by Siri, the growth of SmartTVs, and more.
Rod in Broomfield, Colorado listens via TuneIn and asked: “I’m wondering about Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 5. I’m building a new home and it supposedly Internet ready. So I’m wondering what kind of modem I should get to make it most effective in the home.”
Rod, WiFi 5 and WiFi 6 are just the new marketing names for 802.11ac and 802.11ax. If youve bought a router in the last few years youre probably already using 802.11ac whether it was called WiFi 5 or not when you bought it.
If youre looking to future proof, you probably dont want either since WiFi 6E is already out there (though not in huge numbers yet).
WiFi 6E adds support for the 6GHz band to the regular WiFi 6 specs.
WiFi 6 in general, 6E or not, is a good choice for a home if you have or plan to have a lot of smart devices as the new standard includes improvements to allow devices to handle increased traffic more efficiently (look up orthogonal frequency division multiple access if you want all the boring technical details).
WiFi 6 devices also get the best real world connection speeds, but that more important in the lab than most other places, most routers are more than capable of fully using most internet connection speeds.
You did ask about modems, modems are pretty simple just get any Docsis 3.1 modem and youll be good to go as long as your internet connection speed is below 6Gbps. If you need up to 10 youll have to look for a Docsis 4.0 modem, but youll have a hard time finding one today.
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