These 100MHz are separated into 14 channels of 20MHz each. 802.11ac, which debuted in 2013, is driving adoption of 5GHz, helped along by adoption of 2020’s 802.11ax / Wi-Fi 6 - but thanks to backwards compatibility, dual-radio routers and devices, and lower-cost peripherals with less expensive chipsets, 2.4GHz will continue to reign for a while.Īll versions of Wi-Fi up to and including 802.11n (a, b, g, n) operate between the frequencies of 24MHz. Channels 1, 6, and 11įirst of all, let’s talk about 2.4GHz, because even in 2021, the majority of Wi-Fi installations still use the 2.4GHz band in some way. Rather than asking people to continue playing “Guess the relevant Wi-Fi standard,” somebody decided it would be easier to just call the current major consumer version “Wi-Fi 6.” There’s an even newer standard, Wi-Fi 6E, which supports signals in the 5-6GHz band, but the Wi-Fi 6E hardware in-market is a rather poor deal at present. If you’re wondering why we moved to branded naming as opposed to the standard number + a signifying letter combination, it’s because there are a lot more low-level updates and specification changes to 802.11 than there used to be.

The fastest version of Wi-Fi currently available is branded as “Wi-Fi 6E,” aka 802.11ax-2021.

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