Netgear Releases Orbi Mesh Routers With 802.11ax Wi-Fi In H2 2019

Netgear will launch a new generation of its Orbi mesh routers in the second half of 2019 that support 802.11ax Wi-Fi, or Wi-Fi 6. The company reports this as part of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Netgear says the soc in the new generation of routers will come from Qualcomm. The routers get 1024 qam and a 4×4 backhaul for more efficient mutual communication. Netgear does not talk about concrete speeds, but on its site it does speak of ‘bringing gigabit speeds to many more devices in the house’.

Netgear does not provide more information about the new generation of routers at the moment. The 802.11ax standard emphasizes increasing capacity rather than speed, although it is certainly higher. For example, 802.11ax again supports the 2.4GHz band, which 802.11ac does not. This creates additional space for clients to utilize. This in view of the increasing popularity of all kinds of devices that connect wirelessly to the internet. The standards for ac-wifi are usable with the 2.4 GHz band, but then it works slower.

The ax standard has not yet been established, but Samsung speaks of a theoretical total maximum speed of fourteen gigabits per second. The Wi-Fi Alliance will set the standard sometime in the third quarter of 2019. Presumably, Netgear doesn’t want to release an Orbi that doesn’t exactly conform to the 802.11ax standard. The name Wi-Fi 6 is intended to make clearer what older and what new standards are. These must also be processed in interfaces.