WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.260 Every once in a while, it feels like the stars just align perfectly for me. 00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:08.100 We were literally right in the middle of planning a Wi-Fi upgrade 00:00:08.100 --> 00:00:14.280 so that we could test the brand new Wi-Fi 6 capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy S10 series 00:00:14.280 --> 00:00:21.420 when our buds over at Cisco reached out to sponsor a video explaining the benefits of Wi-Fi 6. 00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:28.160 So we were like, uh, so yeah, you know that beastly new access point? 00:00:28.160 --> 00:00:34.520 Well, I think to really show off the benefit of Wi-Fi 6, we'd probably need a couple of those. 00:00:35.160 --> 00:00:38.410 That okay? Yeah? So done? 00:00:39.050 --> 00:00:45.170 So today's video then is all about what Wi-Fi 6 is, why you might care, 00:00:45.450 --> 00:00:47.950 and when you can expect widespread adoption. 00:00:48.390 --> 00:00:53.510 And we're also going to take it for a test drive with the shiny new Galaxy S10+. 00:00:53.510 --> 00:00:56.490 So strap in, because this is going to be fun. 00:01:05.550 --> 00:01:06.970 While our APs are being installed, 00:01:07.150 --> 00:01:09.550 let's talk about what is the same. 00:01:10.370 --> 00:01:14.030 Physically, the hardware for Wi-Fi 6 is actually quite similar. 00:01:14.110 --> 00:01:21.290 So on the client side, cell phone and other device manufacturers can continue to lean on the antenna design experience 00:01:21.290 --> 00:01:24.270 that they've gained from previous generations of Wi-Fi, 00:01:24.270 --> 00:01:28.430 with even the battery consumption of new Wi-Fi 6 chipsets 00:01:28.430 --> 00:01:33.850 only expected to increase during times of continuous high-speed data transfer. 00:01:33.850 --> 00:01:37.150 And even then, that's only because the data rate is higher. 00:01:37.150 --> 00:01:39.950 So nothing really changes there. 00:01:39.950 --> 00:01:42.750 As for the deployment, that's basically the same. 00:01:43.090 --> 00:01:47.050 Remember your best practices for AP positioning, run your Ethernet, 00:01:47.050 --> 00:01:49.510 and wire everything up to your network switch. 00:01:49.890 --> 00:01:56.330 Because Wi-Fi 6 is backwards compatible, any legacy clients on the network won't even know the difference. 00:01:57.070 --> 00:02:02.990 Now, let's talk about what is different, which is basically everything, starting with even the name. 00:02:02.990 --> 00:02:05.750 Wi-Fi is undergoing a much-needed and 00:02:05.750 --> 00:02:11.350 surprisingly sensible rebranding right now, from 802.11 something something, 00:02:11.350 --> 00:02:17.190 for those curious, by the way, this generation was going to be called 802.11ax, 00:02:17.190 --> 00:02:19.530 to simple numbered generations. 00:02:19.530 --> 00:02:24.850 So AC becomes 5, N becomes 4, and so on and so forth, 00:02:24.850 --> 00:02:31.050 with these little icons that are designed to inform consumers which generation is supported by both their client 00:02:31.050 --> 00:02:34.050 and the AP that they happen to be connected to. 00:02:34.050 --> 00:02:35.690 Next up is the deployment. 00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:38.360 Yeah, okay, it's not quite the same. 00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:43.720 So Wi-Fi 6 handles more clients and more cluttered environments better. 00:02:43.900 --> 00:02:48.420 So you might not actually need as many APs, which is nice, 00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:52.280 but watch out, because you're not going to be saving a buck here. 00:02:52.620 --> 00:02:56.380 Each of those access points could be handling multiple 00:02:56.960 --> 00:03:02.000 gigabits of data per second across literally hundreds of clients. 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:05.380 So your commodity gigabit PoE suite, 00:03:05.720 --> 00:03:10.520 your commodity gigabit PoE switch isn't going to cut it anymore. 00:03:10.520 --> 00:03:16.120 So we're moving to this Meraki MS355-24x2. 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:24.180 It's 24 multi-gigabit ports, could actually be fully loaded with MR55 access points, 00:03:24.180 --> 00:03:27.820 thanks to its beefy 740 watt power supply, 00:03:27.820 --> 00:03:33.660 and this thing is rated at up to 640 gigabit per second of switching capacity. 00:03:33.660 --> 00:03:35.400 And all of that is important. 00:03:35.400 --> 00:03:37.960 Because even though it's rated at a mere 00:03:38.340 --> 00:03:40.260 39% faster throughput, 00:03:40.260 --> 00:03:47.180 so about 600 megabit per second versus 433 on a single 80 megahertz 5 gigahertz channel, 00:03:47.220 --> 00:03:50.040 thanks to packing more data into each payload, 00:03:50.040 --> 00:03:56.340 Wi-Fi 6 has some truly game-changing features when it comes to multi-client access 00:03:56.400 --> 00:04:01.620 that are going to result in far higher overall data rates and less waiting. 00:04:01.920 --> 00:04:05.220 So first of all, access points can be configured 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:08.720 with up to an 8x8 antenna configuration. 00:04:08.720 --> 00:04:12.560 So that is 8 for sending and 8 for receiving. 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:18.540 And on top of that, Wi-Fi 6 supports up to 8 concurrent downlink streams with multi-user MIMO. 00:04:18.540 --> 00:04:24.400 That is a huge increase over the 4 concurrent downlink streams that was supported with Wi-Fi 5. 00:04:24.400 --> 00:04:27.780 So this widening of the highway, so to speak, 00:04:27.780 --> 00:04:35.280 is a big part of what's going to make Gen 6 so critical to making Wi-Fi usable in large venues. 00:04:35.400 --> 00:04:38.080 Like sports arenas and crowded concert halls. 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:41.300 But it's not even close to the entire picture. 00:04:41.780 --> 00:04:47.020 The next huge innovation for large-scale deployments was actually borrowed from cellular networks. 00:04:47.320 --> 00:04:53.900 With Wi-Fi 6, the band or the frequency range that would have made up a traditional channel 00:04:54.100 --> 00:04:59.300 can be split using a technique called Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access 00:05:00.280 --> 00:05:02.280 or OFDMA. 00:05:02.720 --> 00:05:04.960 So, you know how one of the best 00:05:05.400 --> 00:05:11.180 pro tips for anyone living in an apartment is to use a scanner to see what channels your neighbors are on and then 00:05:11.400 --> 00:05:14.180 manually switch over to a different one? Well, forget about it. 00:05:14.180 --> 00:05:31.000 OFDMA allows each band, be it 20, 40, or all the way up to 160 megahertz, to be split up into multiple chunks as many as 78 sub-channels and each one of those can be allocated to a separate client. 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:35.280 Now obviously, to make all of this work, the access point 00:05:35.400 --> 00:05:37.400 needs to get a little bit smarter. 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:42.320 Fortunately, it did. With Wi-Fi 6, an AP can negotiate what are called 00:05:43.260 --> 00:05:51.140 Deterministic Connections, allowing it to exercise a great deal of control over the connected clients and how they're allowed to behave. 00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:58.840 So first, a client gets dynamically assigned however many channels or sub-channels can be spared at that moment. 00:05:59.280 --> 00:06:05.060 Then, things get even crazier. Each client gets a schedule for when it's allowed to transmit 00:06:05.400 --> 00:06:07.160 and receive data. 00:06:07.160 --> 00:06:10.280 Now, hold on a second. I know that in the computing world, 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:15.200 scheduling a data transmission usually means increased latency, 00:06:15.220 --> 00:06:18.160 which is one of the biggest issues with Wi-Fi today. 00:06:18.280 --> 00:06:25.220 But in practice, what this means is less collision mitigation overhead, which means that there's actually less waiting around. 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:32.960 Think of it kind of like a perfectly executed zipper merge on the highway, so it will actually reduce latency. 00:06:33.280 --> 00:06:35.240 That means, yes friends, gaming online, 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:41.080 gaming on Wi-Fi without legs bikes could actually be a thing with Wi-Fi 6. Go figure. 00:06:41.180 --> 00:06:45.680 Another fun feature of Deterministic Connections is that they can be used to save power. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:53.000 So, you know your connected smart light switch, your Amazon button, your asset tags, etc, etc, etc. 00:06:53.620 --> 00:06:58.660 Right now, they waste a ton of power constantly checking in with the network. 00:06:58.660 --> 00:07:04.220 Hey, you got anything for me? No? Okay. How about now? Got anything for me? No? Okay. 00:07:04.220 --> 00:07:05.120 Well, with scheduling, 00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:10.360 with gradual check-ins called target wake-up time, your devices can check in far less frequently, 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:13.040 dramatically increasing their battery life. 00:07:13.200 --> 00:07:20.360 The coolest thing about Wi-Fi 6, though, is not the techy specs, as much as I personally get really amped on that stuff. 00:07:20.760 --> 00:07:27.340 Rather, it's the different experiences that it enables. Like, have you ever tried to stealthily have a video chat at the back of a lecture 00:07:27.340 --> 00:07:28.580 hall or 00:07:28.580 --> 00:07:34.280 upload a video to YouTube from a large event? It's a total mess. And I mean, even something as stupid as 00:07:34.280 --> 00:07:40.060 breaking for lunch during a conference can absolutely crush your mobile experience as 00:07:40.440 --> 00:07:43.180 everyone jumps on Facebook at exactly the same time. 00:07:43.260 --> 00:07:49.480 Well, thanks to everything I've talked about already, and actually a whole host of other new features, 00:07:49.760 --> 00:07:56.660 including better beamforming, spatial frequency reuse, and dynamic fragmentation, which makes better use of the available spectrum. 00:07:56.660 --> 00:08:00.520 Oh, man, actually, I forgot to mention that, too. Down the line, 00:08:00.520 --> 00:08:03.960 we're even getting more spectrum in the 5 to 6 gigahertz range. 00:08:04.280 --> 00:08:07.820 That's gonna be sweet. Anyway, the point is, with all of this new tech, 00:08:08.810 --> 00:08:12.070 this is not like an incremental, 00:08:13.250 --> 00:08:17.870 generational, evolutionary improvement. And you could even argue that this is the biggest 00:08:18.530 --> 00:08:23.350 fundamental change that we've seen yet for Wi-Fi. And I, for one, am stoked. 00:08:24.200 --> 00:08:25.360 But, 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:32.640 there's always a but, isn't there? The one buzzkill today is that while Wi-Fi 6 is backwards compatible, 00:08:32.740 --> 00:08:34.740 you're gonna have to wait a little while 00:08:34.740 --> 00:08:42.040 longer for the kick-ass experience that I've talked about here, because the promises of Wi-Fi 6 can only be fully realized 00:08:42.160 --> 00:08:48.620 once client devices with support for these new features start to overtake their legacy counterparts. 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:52.280 Now, the good news is that at least they're already showing up. 00:08:52.500 --> 00:08:58.660 So, all that's left in this video, then, is to take our S10 Plus for a quick test drive. Now, 00:08:59.780 --> 00:09:03.100 one problem I have is that we don't have a couple hundred of these, 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:05.160 so I'm not gonna be able to do that. 00:09:05.160 --> 00:09:08.220 I'm not gonna be able to do, like, a mega-client test or anything like that, 00:09:08.560 --> 00:09:13.620 but we can at least make sure that everything's working properly here in the office with a quick speed test. 00:09:13.820 --> 00:09:19.200 So, without further ado, let's see just how fast we can make this go. 00:09:19.300 --> 00:09:24.680 So, the first thing that I noticed, just connecting to our new access point, is that, remember those little icons 00:09:24.680 --> 00:09:27.820 I told you guys about? It's right there at the top of the phone. 00:09:28.380 --> 00:09:34.500 Wi-Fi 6, so you'll know that you're negotiating your link using the correct generation of the technology. So, that's pretty cool. 00:09:35.160 --> 00:09:41.620 Then, for us, remember, we just upgraded to 10 gigabit intranet, so as long as we can find a speed test server that can 00:09:42.040 --> 00:09:49.600 take the burn, then all we got to do is run a simple speed test here, and have a look at what kind of speeds that we can get. 00:09:49.600 --> 00:09:52.600 And I have never seen anything like this. 00:09:53.280 --> 00:09:55.280 That upload speed. 00:09:56.400 --> 00:10:02.960 800 megabit per second. Guys, not only is this Wi-Fi, this is Wi-Fi on a mobile device. 00:10:03.280 --> 00:10:05.120 This is a 2x2 antenna. 00:10:05.160 --> 00:10:08.760 This is a 2x2 antenna configuration. That is real-world speeds of 00:10:09.380 --> 00:10:17.760 like 800. We're getting close to if I actually plugged a USB type-c dongle into my phone and plugged it into the wall. 00:10:18.340 --> 00:10:24.900 That's absolutely incredible. And like I said before, it is absolutely just the tip of the iceberg. 00:10:25.660 --> 00:10:29.180 So, thanks for watching guys. Thanks to Cisco for sponsoring this video. 00:10:29.180 --> 00:10:31.120 If you guys disliked it, you can hit that button. 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:35.000 But if you liked it, hit like, get subscribed, or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we feature. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:38.280 Especially if you're a small business owner, at the link in the video description. 00:10:39.040 --> 00:10:45.400 Also down there is our merch store, which has cool shirts, like the one I'm wearing, as well as our community forum, which you should totally join.