1Wi-Fi competes with 5G? Since the iPhone 11 and Mate30 series were released in September, the early S10 and the new iPhone 11 support WiFi 6; while Mate30 supports 5G, "WiFi 6 or 5G is more important" has become a hot topic, causing endless discussions among netizens.

1Wi-Fi compete with G?

Since iPhone 11 and Mate30 series were released in September, the early S10 and the new iPhone 11 support WiFi6; while Mate30 supports 5G, "WiFi6 or 5G is more important" has become a hot topic, causing endless discussions among netizens.

In fact, for Apple or Huawei , WiFi 6 and 5G are not a "fish and bear's paw" issue, but are limited by time and business factors. If nothing unexpected happens, both will be available on mainstream phones next year.

. Back to the question itself, how should I choose if I want to make a choice? The author prefers to apply an online buzzword: "Adults don't make choices, they all want them."

If you have to say that, these two may have a certain competitive relationship in some application scenarios. However, it's like taking the subway. We may encounter the same person repeatedly at some point in time, but most of our lives do not have too much intersection.

Compared with 5G, WiFi6 is a technical solution to the "localization" of short-distance wireless transmission. All protocols starting with 802.11 (including 802.11ax, ac, b, g, n, etc.) including WiFi6 do not involve any control spectrum resources and are free and open. The frequency band 5G is a spectrum resource controlled by the government formulated by 3GPP and communication associations of various countries.

. For the 2.4Ghz and Ghz (5.8Ghz) frequency bands used by WiFi6, the channels and frequency open in each country are still somewhat different.

2.4Ghz, 5Ghz Open frequency in some countries and regions (from WIKI)

Say a few more words about Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi Alliance changed the name of the past 802.11ax to WiFi6, as well as the previous generation of 802.11ac WiFi5 and 802.11n WiFi4. The organization that has always truly promoted the continuous progress of WiFi technology is called IEEE. IEEE is an association of electronic technology and information science engineers founded in the United States. It is the world's largest non-profit professional and technical society with more than 400,000 members and is located in more than 160 countries. Among them, the "802 Working Group" can be said to be the most well-known working group of the organization. Its main work content is to formulate international standards for local area networks. The 802.11 (both Wi-Fi, wireless LAN) we are familiar with is one of its working groups.

So how did the name WiFi come from? The author is not sure how it came about... It is said that it is a combination of two words WirelessFidelity, but this does not prevent us from continuing the following topic. In the process of carrying forward WiFi, in addition to creators, the joint efforts of the entire industry are also inseparable from the joint efforts of the entire industry. Unlike non-profit association organizations like IEEE, the Wi-Fi Alliance, as the owner of Wi-Fi trademarks, is a commercial alliance whose main job is to promote compatibility between WiFi products (which does not prevent them from certifying fees) and gradually expand the WiFi market.

Usually, the WiFi we use is free. But a few years ago, operators also expected to further expand their revenue through commercial Wi-Fi. Among them, hotspot (HS, hereinafter referred to as HS) is a very critical technology. In 2013, it was widely believed that HS2.0 technology will become the next major event in the online world.

Wi-Fi and mobile networks first intimate contact

HS2.0, which emerged from organizations such as the Wi-Fi Alliance (Passpoint Project Certification) and the Wireless Broadband Alliance (dedicated to interactivity) at that time, was a first technology across industries. These organizations are very attractive to the common positioning of HS2.0, that is, to create a secure, automatic, and user/carrier strategy Wi-Fi connectivity experience, and to reflect these changes in Wi-Fi user experience on a mobile phone. With HS2.0, a huge network composed of random Wi-Fi access points can be effectively connected through interconnection. This allows users to seamlessly transition between Wi-Fi networks no matter where they are.

Usually, people use Wi-Fi in the places indoors.When they are indoors, they must be in a building in a certain place, and the building and the network infrastructure in it are generally owned by others, and this "other" is usually a company. The current situation is that the use of Wi-Fi in public places is very common and is constantly evolving. These venues include hotels, schools, shopping malls, retail stores, public transportation, etc. This is undoubtedly an unprecedented opportunity for any company that wholesales its existing WLAN capacity to many operators, as recurring fees can be charged with Wi-Fi network access. WLANs in enterprises were often affected by huge capital and operational costs. Now they can effectively transform them into profit centers, while saving costs to build more wireless networks with industrial advantages, thereby improving their own user experience.

At that time, international giants including Google , Facebook, Amazon and other international giants, as well as a large number of domestic commercial Wi-Fi companies entered the market. China's three major operators have also begun to deploy indoor and outdoor APs in batches to "draw circles", especially the two companies with relatively poor network coverage are more active. The initial role of HS2.0 is mainly focused on using various certificates for basic web search and automatic authentication. People are focusing more on how to use smartphone SIM cards as HS2.0 certificates. HS2.0 also supports authentication using client-side certificates or username/password pairing. No matter which certificate is used, HS2.0 can connect to a hotspot without the user setting up its device. There is no more "SSID surfing", and there is no need to ask the clerk for Wi-Fi password. With HS2.0, the importance of SSID has been weakened. What is really important is whether the access point and the user's "primary" network provider have signed a roaming agreement. In fact, setting up many different SSIDs for an access point is for different purposes, and with HS2.0 advertising, this practice will also be significantly reduced. In addition, HS2.0 can enhance the performance of the mobile network because it reduces the air link traffic generated by these additional SSIDs related to beacon and probing responses.

2Wi-Fi The best choice for indoor connection

Wi-Fi commercial and home use is "slipped"

Although enterprises have not successfully used HS2.0 to achieve more profits, we still need to see that more WiFi access points have been deployed in more and more business scenarios. As time goes by, access points have changed from "existence" to "connected" to "usable" and then to "useful" and this is inseparable from the joint efforts of the entire industry: including commercial promotion alliances such as standard organizations and Wi-Fi alliances represented by IEEE; chip providers represented by Broadcom and Intel , etc.; enterprise and consumer-grade device manufacturers represented by Cisco , Asus, etc.; terminal equipment manufacturers represented by Huawei, Apple , and Samsung; and the most important users.

and pull your eyes back to our own home. Thanks to the continuous implementation of the "Broadband China" strategy to speed up and reduce fees, the fixed network broadband in ordinary homes has risen from 10M and 20M to the common 200M and 300M today, and can even provide access speeds of 500M or even 1000M in some areas. The standard routes for most people's homes have also been upgraded from 100 megabytes to gigabytes. If we follow the principle of "just use it", the cheapest WiFi5 routers today are even less than 100 yuan, but why do we always can't help but look at which better and more expensive products? It seems that colorful applications such as B station video, online games, 4K high-definition, and high-speed network disks bring accelerated iteration of hardware.

Because what really promotes technology to continue to develop in essence is consumers' pursuit of newer, stronger and better experience. In fact, consumer experience is actually largely brought by equipment manufacturers. The CPU of our computers in our homes has been spiraling from the Pentium Ceyron Core Ryzen, but for more than 20 years, it was just one of two choices. For memory and hard drives, a large number of consumers are not sure whether the memory particles are provided by Micron, Hyundai or Samsung.To expand this range beyond computer hosts, such as mobile phones that everyone has, a large number of consumers do not know or care about what the screen is used, what the flash memory is used, what the photosensitive components are used...

ranges from a feature phone worth hundreds of yuan to a smart phone worth thousands of yuan, and to a high-end mobile phone worth thousands of yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan. People have gradually accepted and recognized the added value that high-end mobile phones bring to our lives, both in terms of functionality and experience. Mobile phones with the same chip have price differences of thousands of yuan. For example, mobile terminals with built-in Kirin 980/ Snapdragon 855 series chips are priced from more than 2,000 to more than 7,000 yuan, and are frugal. The same is true for routers that are access devices. When we have a mobile phone such as the Samsung S10/Note10 or the iPhone 11 series and a number of WiFi 6-enabled mobile phones launched in the future, there is a more reasonable reason to choose a router that supports WiFi 6 to enjoy a better experience. (For the features and advantages of WiFi6, please refer to the past content introduction)

So the question is, how to choose WiFi6 routing? Regarding this issue, we conducted a small survey of 10 people in the editorial department. People usually care about router selection: signal strength, appearance, stability and durability, function, connection rate, price, and user interface convenience... The survey results are difficult to adjust, and everyone has no obvious consistency in their attention to various items.

However, when asked about the specific brand used at home, Asus's name appears the most. Looking at Asus's past 30 years, it has achieved remarkable results in the fields of boards, complete machines, peripherals, etc. In the wireless routing market, Asus has spent more than ten years to establish its own high-end brand image. Its products are well-known in terms of performance, function and stability.

Specifically for WiFi6 generation products, Asus and Broadcom have strategically collaborated to launch the world's first WiFi6 router. Since then, several WiFi6 products with different positioning for segmented scenarios have been launched one after another, with prices ranging from thousands of yuan to thousands of yuan.

In addition, any product of high-tech and advanced technology actually faces certain risks. Behind this, there must be the hard work of a large number of senior engineers. The process formed by solid R&D skills, exquisite craftsmanship, high-quality material selection and other processes is the cornerstone of creating a good product. Together, these constitute the style tone of the Asus brand: leading the launch of products that conform to industry trends, adapt to market positioning, and meet the growing needs of users.

is also because of this. Asus router has been the champion of e-sports routing sales for three consecutive years in shopping festivals such as Tmall and JD.com in the past three years, firmly ranking first in the high-end routing market.

This is like the mobile phone market. There are at least dozens of new phones released every year. What may be well-known is very limited, and there are only a few that can be sold hot. The reason is that comprehensive performance; function; appearance and appearance play a decisive factor. In addition, brand reputation and product quality are also important factors that influence consumers... For router products, this is nothing more than this.

Finally, let’s go back to the question at the beginning of our article, “Which is more important, 5G or WiFi6?” This kind of question is like: “Do you want to drink soup first or eat a bite of rice first?” Did you finish this meal and the next meal?