The official Wi-Fi 6 standard in late 2019, and Wi-Fi 6 enabled hardware was first released in 2020. With the change also came a change in the naming convention used by the Wi-Fi Alliance. This has simplified the terminology for the average user. Prior to the renaming, letters such as A,B,G,N,or AC were used to describe the generation of WiFi technology. Now with the change in naming convention, instead of 802.11 ax we have Wi-Fi 6. The previous generation has also been renamed to be called Wi-Fi 5 instead of 802.11 ac. Wi-Fi 6 has been a hot topic in 2021 as it promises to deliver higher speeds to higher densities of wireless devices especially in crowded RF environments. Wi-Fi 6 is now standard in all flagship smartphones and most laptops. Does the Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5) have WiFi 6?
Yes the PS5 has Wi-Fi 6 technology. While this is very exciting indeed, it actually makes surprisingly little difference in most situations. Wi-Fi 6 is not really about achieving higher speeds to a single device but is more about handling lots and lots of devices in a small area. This means that for the average gamer playing their PS5 from home Wi-Fi 6 is not that beneficial.
PS5 has a Sony J20H100 Wi-Fi 6 network card with support for 2×2 MU-MIMO and Bluetooth 5.1. It is also backwards compatible all the way back to Wi-Fi 4. The PS5 supports both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi bands. Real world speeds in excess of 300 Mbps are possible using the Wi-Fi built in to the console. This is more than enough for most people, especially given that according to Ookla’s Speedtest.net the average broadband connection is 135 Mbps in the United States and 85 Mbps globally. Sony is only recommending a minimum of 5 Mbps for optimal results. Of course having faster download speeds will make for faster downloads of games and updates.
What is Wi-Fi 6
Wi-Fi 6 is the latest generation of Wi-Fi technology. It was originally named 802.11 ax but was renamed when the Wi-Fi Alliance changed their naming scheme used to reference each generation of Wi-Fi technology. The new naming scheme is meant to be easier to understand as it follows a sequential pattern with each new release getting a higher number.
The primary focus with Wi-Fi 6 is providing faster Wi-Fi in high density environments. Examples of high-density environments include sports stadiums, university auditoriums, casinos, event centers, and theaters. In these types of environments Wi-Fi 6 is better optimized to provide stable performance than previous Wi-Fi generation’s.
There are still a few key benefits to Wi-Fi 6 that apply to a home environment, particularly in dense urban neighborhoods. The increased efficiency of Wi-Fi 6 allows for higher bandwidth. This is especially important if you have an internet connection faster than about 300 Mbps. For slower internet connections the difference will be less noticeable.
Why is Wi-Fi 6 Faster
There are two primary technologies that make Wi-Fi 6 connections faster and more effecient than Wi-Fi 5, MU-MIMO. and OFDMA .
MU-MIMO, stands for “multi-user, multiple input, multiple output,” it is officially supported by some newer Wi-Fi 5 devices but it is improved with Wi-Fi 6. MU-MIMO technology allows an access point to send and receive data from multiple devices at the same time. Without this technology devices have to wait their turn to send and receive data. Right now, MU-MIMO allows access points to communicate with four devices at a time. Wi-Fi 6 allows access points to communicate with up to eight. This is part of the reason it performs much better than previous generations when used in high density environments.
The other new technology, which is even more important is, OFDMA. OFDMA stands for “orthogonal frequency division multiple access”. The primary function is to allow one transmission to deliver data to multiple devices at once.
Both of these technologies are used on the Sony PS5 console leading to improved WiFi performance. The PS5 offers WiFi 6 which is awesome but most serious gamers will want to opt for a hard wired ethernet connection to their PS5 anyways. Fortunately though, for those using WiFi, the PS5 offers a much faster WiFi connection than the previous generation PS4.