Well, what's the biggest changes in wi fi?
I mean, we want to get into the weeds and the details, but like just off the top of your head, what
are you excited about in this new release of wi fi?
Yeah, I mean, the most exciting thing for me is off the EMA, which is multiple access, BSS coloring
and also target wake time.
So those are like your top three things.
Yep.
So but do you have like, just like a quick overview of what each of those actually are?
Yeah.
Off the me is borrowed from cellular technologies where it allows multiple access onto the channel.
So you're subdividing a channel into multiple sub channels and then you got BSS coloring, which helps
in high density situations where if you're on the same same channel, you can tell if another transmission
is coming from a different network or this basic service set.
And then target wake time is really meant for power saving.
It's a better power saving mechanism where it's a scheduled, scheduled wake for clients and it's catered
towards Iot and mobile device.
So assuming well that you had.
A perfect, pristine environment.
So you had your your Samsung phone just at home.
You've got one app.
There's no interference.
What is the speed, theoretically, that you should get?
Theoretically, you'll probably get over one gigabit per second.
Right?
So assuming your access point is connected to a one gig port and and you've got the bandwidth wherever
you're at, you do a speed test, everyone goes a speed test dot net.
You could probably get close to a gig or even over a gig.
As long as that phone that device has capabilities can go over a gig, you're going to need a little
bit more radio chains.
You're going to need to support more channel widths.
Right?
You have to support 80 and 160 megahertz channel width.
That's how you're going to get more throughput is by using more channel widths, channel bonding up
to 160 megahertz and then having more radio chains that transmit more data.
So the more data you can transmit, the more throughput you can get.
I just wanted to say for everyone who didn't understand off the terms that Orwell was talking about,
we're going to talk about those terms in this video.
So don't worry too much about that.
But I just wanted to have that in the beginning, to put him on the spot about how fast it will actually
be, because I believe it's supposed to be in theory, four times as fast or five times as fast as AC.
Is that right?
That's what they claim.
I like that.
I like the way you said that.
That's what they claim.
And possibly in a lab environment, that's that's that's how it works.
But in the lab environment, how are they testing it?
Right.
Is it one device or is it.
Ten devices or is it 200 devices?
Because if it's 200 devices, I don't know if I can't see everyone getting over a gig speed.
Just because of how wifi works.
Yeah.
I mean, apart from the fact that some apps like we I was, we were given these Cisco apps, they only
have a 2.5 giga.
Sorry, 2.5 gig uplink.
So I mean, if you have 200 devices, I mean, you still got to share that uplink speed.
Yeah, exactly.
So you're you're always going to be limited by, you know, upstream and whatever port you're connected
to and also ultimately what your bandwidth is leaving your building.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah.
I mean, I've only got like 60 mega megabits per second at home on my Internet connection.
It's not really going to help me having a gig.
And not to mention at.
At a lot of events or if you go to a conference, there's a lot of people that still like to throttle
users.
So even though we may have wi fi six capability and everything's wi fi six, there's still a lot of
venues that are probably going to throw out all your your bandwidth down to less than ten megs.
Yeah, that's a good point.
Just for everyone's benefit, I.
Archer Well, just to give us a quick overview, you know, as an introduction to this video and now
I'm going to cut back to like our original deep conversation about, you know, what, what wi fi is
about.
I want to shake the ground.
A break.
Oh, wait.
Let loose.
I'm tired of waiting.
Got to make that move.
Hey, everyone, it's David Bumble coming to you from the UK.
Really excited to be talking to someone who knows a lot more about WiFi six and wireless technologies
than I do.
Well, welcome to the show.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
So before we get started, I met you at a Cisco event in San Jose just recently, a few weeks ago.
It's really good to meet you.
And I mean, I know that you and a buddy of yours have a special podcast.
So just before we jump into the technical details, if you want to know more information about wireless
or WiFi or well, tell us about the podcast like very quickly and then I'll start hammering you with
questions about WiFi six.
Yeah, sure.
The the podcast I started back in 2015 and then I added Francois, my co-host, because it was for me,
got a little boring talking to my wall.
So it's a little bit more of a lively conversation.
So we've been doing the podcasts we try to publish every week and we talk primarily about WiFi topics.
So we do technical and a little bit some of the non-technical discussions around wireless technologies.
And we recently did a wi fi six series where we took the draft of the of 11 802 11 ax or wi fi six as
we're calling it now.
And we just talked about it on the show.
Yeah.
I mean, if you can give me those links, I'll put them below for anyone who wants to, you know, go
and get more detail.
But I mean, the aim of this call is firstly to introduce you to my audience so they get to know you
as someone who's an expert in this field, but also to like try and get some explanations of wi fi sex
in, I would say someone who's sort of new to wireless, you know, who's watching this can understand
it.
So I'm going to try and get you to answer the questions as simply as possible.
But before we go there, I mean, let's talk about your experience.
You obviously have a lot of experience in this area, so I don't want to give it away.
You tell the audience, you know, where do you work?
One of your one of the places, should I say?
One of the.
It's quite a quite a small quite a small campus, I believe.
Yeah.
It's a pretty small campus on the West Coast.
I mean, I am a network engineer for Stanford University.
And all that really means is I do a lot of layer two switching and a lot of wireless.
And so the campus is pretty big and going around trying to redesign a lot of areas for how wireless
is used now versus how it was before when it was just about coverage.
And so that's a very unique environment with a lot of different demands and requirements that people
want, especially when it comes to lecture halls.
So that's my background.
I do have a networking background actually.
I started off in Systems Administration dealing with servers and Microsoft servers and mail servers,
and I'm glad I don't have to do that anymore, but and so do I.
And when I do have time, I actually do a lot of wireless for other companies in the Bay Area and some
select companies that are not in California.
But I do help others with wireless design, configuration troubleshooting.
And so that's on top of doing my day job and the podcast.
Yes.
I mean, you really busy, obviously.
I mean, just for everyone's benefit, you wake up at 445.
I mean, what's the time now?
At the moment in California right now it is 5:45 a.m..
Yeah, it's a really early.
So thanks very much for waking up so early to talk to me.
So let's talk about Stanford.
I mean, how many students are they on or on the campus or how many do you have to support kind of thing?
There's a lot.
There's over, I believe, over 10,000 students that are on campus, I believe.
Yeah.
So you I mean, you've got 10,000 students, but you've also got like you got faculty staff and faculty
staff and that's over I think all together that's over 12,000 to support everyone.
And so for wireless, we're we do wireless for the campus.
I'm not the only wireless guy.
I mean, we have other network engineers.
Sure.
But there are some of us who who focus more on the wireless side.
And we have to support all of those people and all the different applications they want to use.
So it can get pretty demanding at times, especially when there's events coming and people want to do
some pop up events where there's no wi fi there.
It's just a tent maybe.
Well, so we have to work with some unique environments and especially dealing with a campus that's,
that's got architecture that nobody wants to modify, it can get challenging.
I'm going to make a joke now.
I mean, university students, a lot of people have this perception that they're not the how do you
say the most user friendly type of people to support, you know, higher education is in that niche.
I would just say there there can be some pains.
You know, we go through that sometimes.
I think that's on par for any university, but we try our best.
I mean, we want wi fi to work.
We don't want to have this stigma of we don't want to make it work.
Yeah.
I mean, people, I mean, I'm assuming I mean, it's a trend.
Younger people, university students are extremely demanding when they think of the Internet.
I think a lot of people think wi fi is the Internet.
That's how they get onto the Internet.
I mean, MacBooks today, iPads, iPhones, all these devices don't have physical connections.
So what do you what are your thoughts on the sort of trend away from physical networks to wireless?
And how is Wi-Fi six kind of, you know, making you excited for, you know, supporting your your user
base?
I mean, it's great, right?
Because we don't have to stick to a single desk, right?
So we can move.
I do this at work sometimes.
I don't want to sit at my desk.
I will go somewhere else and sit maybe at one of the cafes on campus or or an area that kind of have
like peace and quiet where no one can just walk up to me and I do that wirelessly.
Same with any other student that wants to work, say, on the grass during the summer.
They'll want wireless there.
I mean, there's there's some sometimes where we can't provide that because in order to provide wireless,
you got to have a cable going to the access point.
And sometimes that requires trenching, digging holes or digging, digging the ground to run cabling
to to access points.
What I see where Wi-Fi six comes into play because Wi-Fi six really deals with high efficiency.
That's the name that they've given it with AC.
We had very high throughput, and so now we're trying to make wi fi more efficient with what we have.
And I think when all our devices are wi fi six, that's when we're going to see a lot of the benefits
of of wi fi.
And because of that high efficiency, then we'll lead to better throughput, lower latency, and it'll
be a much more pleasant experience when it comes to high density type environments your lecture halls,
your events, even your dorms that could potentially increase your user experience.
You mean it's interesting that you said like the I mean, we started off talking about like WiFi six,
but and then you said 802. 11 AC So I'm going to start, you start with the basics.
Why is it called WiFi six rather than some other acronym or is it called by some name?
There's so many acronyms.
I think that we needed to make something a little bit more simpler, especially for people who don't
work in who are not in the trenches of wireless.
Right.
I call it 802. 11 AX.
I called it 802 11 AC Those are the actual names, the standard names that Tripoli has came up with,
but the normal student, faculty, staff, they have no idea what that is, right?
It's just wi fi and and to them calling it wi fi six, they know like that's the latest standard wi
fi six and they know that if they see the wi fi six sticker, then that's they're buying the latest
equipment with the latest technology.
Right.
That that term came out of the wi fi alliance, whose job is to, you know, integrate these technologies
with society and make sure it gets marketed properly out there.
And I think it's a good name, right, for for the average person, because no one's going to know when
I say eight to point 11.
AX What the heck is that?
Right.
So Wi-Fi six makes sense.
And then if you go backwards, right, wi fi five is 802. 11 AC and so forth.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it makes a lot of sense when I look at the names I triple E names like 82.11 E and
then we got B and we got G and we got N and wave too.
I mean, it's ridiculous.
How is a normal person?
And when I say a normal person, a non technical person, technical going to understand like what that
actually means.
Like, I mean is a better than G is a better than N.
I mean it doesn't there's no sort of logic unless you're a technical person, right.
You wouldn't know.
And I Tripoli works that way in sequence with the letters.
Right.
And the reason why they're on a X is because the single letters have already been taken up.
We don't necessarily hear about all of them.
And some of those letters are very specific to different things.
Yes.
I mean, it's not just wi fi, it's other things as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WI fi six encompasses a lot of different standards and amendments that have been created.
Right.
You've got eight 2.11.
I nobody knows what that is, but that's security for for wi fi.
That's your k your pre shared key that you type in to your wireless network.
It's a very good point that I'm glad you've raised that.
So let's get to the very important question.
How fast or how quick?
Because that's all we care about.
Speed throughput.
I'm just kidding.
How how quick?
How quick is Wi-Fi six compared to WI five?
Five like in theory.
And I don't know if you've had any practical experience deploying it yet.
Like what is your experience?
In theory, it should increase your throughput, but a lot of that is going to be dependent on your
environment because wi fi in general uses what's called unlicensed frequency.
That means anyone can develop a piece of equipment that can work on the same frequency as wi fi.
So that's your that could be cordless phones.
That could be wireless cameras.
And everyone that creates this equipment interprets these standards very differently.
So sometimes these equipment can maybe not work properly over wi fi, which could effectively lower
your speed, your throughput and your speeds.
And I've seen this all the time on campus where even an Apple TV and this is not to harp on Apple.
This is just maybe a lot of people use Apple.
A lot of people use Apple.
It's just sometimes drivers, right?
Like we talk about drivers and firmware, sometimes they don't work the way they should.
And I've seen an Apple TV just kind of slow down the network for everyone in the surrounding area.
But when we replaced it, it was fine.
And so when it comes to throughput, Wi-Fi six is really aimed towards efficiency.
And just remember, it's high efficiency.
So we're not we're not really aiming towards increasing throughputs dramatically.
I think as a byproduct of the efficiency we're going to see throughput increase.
Yeah.
That said, we I don't think we're going to see this until all the devices on the network are wi fi
six.
I mean, you've said that a few times now, you know, high efficiency.
It's efficiency.
So can you explain what that actually means?
So, I mean, if I'm in the middle of the desert and I've got a little wi fi ap by my by my side, it
doesn't sound like it's going to make a lot of difference.
But in your environment with a whole bunch of students roaming around, it sounds like it'll make a
difference.
Could you explain that in more detail?
And let's go a bit technical.
Yeah.
So if we go back to what we're using now, which is AC or wi fi five.
Yeah, that was called very high throughput.
That means that we were we had better or increased channel bonding.
So if you think in 20 megahertz, 40 megahertz, 80 megahertz, 160 megahertz, the more channels you
add, right, you're widening your lane so you can push more data that increases your throughput.
Now, we're not increasing any channels in Wi-Fi six.
What we're doing is making better use of those channels.
So if you think in terms of like a single lane highway and you've got a single car going through, it's
like a single transmission.
When a device wants to talk or transmit, it's going to send data, but it's like one device at a time.
A single transmission doesn't matter how much data it's going to push, it's just a single transmission
going through.
Right.
And you've driven on a highway, you've seen cars where or you've been behind a car that's maybe too
slow, right?
Yeah.
You're driving your Ferrari and I wish there's a little, I don't know, Pinto in front of you and it's
just not moving as fast as you can.
Right.
That's very similar to wi fi where you've got devices that may be slower that have the legacy protocols,
maybe your 802 11 B or G or N, and then you've got your latest, your eight or 211 AC.
That's your Ferrari.
You're driving behind, you're transmitting behind somebody that's maybe too slow.
So you have to wait for that device to transmit, get off, and then you can get on.
You might transmit faster because you've got faster speeds, more spatial streams, more radios.
You know, your two by two, three by three, four by four.
I'm going to I'm going to ask you about all of those terms in a moment.
But carry on.
But with eight or to 11 a or wi fi six they introduce.
So let me back up a little bit.
That term that I've just discussed right there is called ODM Orthogonal Frequency Division, multiplexing.
Yeah.
With WiFi six, they introduce something, a technology that they're borrowing or using from cellular
technologies called off DMA.
And that's orthogonal, orthogonal frequency division, multiple access.
And what that means is that they're taking that single lane highway or that single channel, and they're
dividing that up into smaller channels so multiple transmissions can go out at the same time.
So if you take that single lane highway and Cisco has done a great job at this analogy for this, and
what they've done is instead of that single car or maybe let's use a truck as an example, like a big
rig, and you're only sending very little data.
Like a lot of data that we send are very small bits of data.
And so that's inefficient in wi fi, if you're just sending very small packets, one transmission at
a time with wi fi six, you take a truck and you just fill that truck with, you know, large amounts
of data and you divvy that up.
And that's different clients that you could transmit to or a client or multiple clients can transmit
on that same channel at the same time.
But divvying up that channel into smaller channels.
So every client is allocated a specific channel or a specific length of a channel, and at least now
in a single transmit or what we call a transmit opportunity TCP, we can send multiple transmissions
there.
And so that's making better use of that single channel and taking advantage of a lot of transmissions
that are smaller packet sizes or frame sizes, the payloads.
And then just with that efficiency, we should see throughput increase theoretically because because
of that.
And that's kind of the the gist of it.
I would I'll send you a link, David, of the Cisco video that really kills it on the analogy because
it's really good.
It really helps people understand what we're talking about when it comes to WiFi six because I think
WiFi six is the most complex protocol right now for wireless.
It's a lot to understand and there's so many things that nobody has talked, has spoken about.
But that's why I'm talking to you, because you're going to talk.
Talk about it.
I'll try my best.
Of course not putting you on the spot.
So, I mean, just for everyone's benefit, I warn role that on this call I'm going to poke him because
I want to try and get to the nitty gritty and try and get a good understanding of how all of this works
so well.
Hopefully we'll get through all of it during this call.
But, you know, just just let me know if I'm poking too hard.