Get Your Small Business Up to Speed with Blazing-Fast WiFi 6E
In partnership with NETGEAR
Are you buckled in and ready to ride the WiFi superhighway? Well, it’s officially here!
Is your small business ready? Doug Cheung, director of product line management, Business Wireless Products at NETGEAR, compares WiFi to the freeway or interstate highway. There are two ways he says to speed up the flow of traffic on the freeway—either you “make the engines in the car run faster” or you “add lanes in both directions.”
But, Cheung adds, these improvements are “limited.” Even if you add lanes, the total width of the highway has been fixed from the time the highway was built—and “there’s only so much you can do with the engine in the car.”
So, what’s the solution? To solve freeway traffic congestion, you build a new highway. When it comes to internet traffic, you can also speed things up with “a whole new parallel” highway, says Cheung. And that’s just what’s available now—a 6GHz WiFi superhighway that is three times the width of what exists today—and it’s called WiFi 6 Release 2 or WiFi 6E.
Doubling data speed
WiFi 6E is now officially available for small businesses in the form of products like the recently launched NETGEAR WAX630E. Cheung says this new superhighway will be “huge” for businesses because it will double the data throughput from your local devices to the network. For many small businesses, it promises to be transformational—not just because the technology is brand new, but because it’s now easily accessible for small businesses that often lag behind when it comes to adopting new technologies.
This introduction also makes it a good time for small business owners to start to consider upgrading their networking infrastructure to access this new superhighway.
As Cheung points out, many small businesses are still using dated technologies. Why should you upgrade to WiFi 6E? Cheung says there’s a clear advantage for small businesses to bring the benefits of WiFi 6E to their workspaces. He explains, “This is very simple. You want your employees to have maximum productivity. Maximum productivity requires high-speed data throughput all the time.”
Achieving maximum productivity
As more businesses (of all sizes) adapt to these new office/home working arrangements, employees will be online more, and Cheung explains, “The communication channel between the computers, notebooks, mobile devices, and the network infrastructure will determine their level of productivity. That's how important it is.”
This will require an investment on your part, of course. You’ll need new “vehicles” to traverse the new WiFi superhighway. The good news is that the new equipment that enables you to take advantage of WiFi 6E is “backward compatible,” meaning you’ll still be able to use it on older networks. And going forward, Cheung says NETGEAR’s design philosophy is that “our network management tool, Insight, will be backward and forward compatible.”
Fortunately, Cheung emphasizes that you don’t have to throw out all your old products and buy new ones. He explains, “You don’t need to completely revamp your infrastructure. You can incrementally add to it to enhance your capabilities. The key point is that your investment is preserved and protected.”
User-friendly network management
To be clear, the Insight Management Platform is not new. NETGEAR has offered it for years and is constantly updating it. According to Cheung, Insight has two main functions: network management and control. The management aspect allows the administrator to set up and manage all the devices in a network while the controller coordinates the interaction between the access points to deliver optimal network-wide performance.
As Cheung explains it, the access points need to work with each other to form the WiFi network. The controller, similar to a cell tower, ensures users do not lose access or experience glitches when they cross between access points. The “secret sauce,” says Cheung, is “in maintaining connectivity for a large number of devices on the network, traveling from location to location.”
Cheung adds that this is all “very user-friendly.” Plus, he says, “the indispensable, highly valuable control system is again backward and forward compatible. It’s very important that our customers understand that their investment is intact.”
It’s also crucial that small business owners understand that the introduction of new equipment like a WAX630E access point doesn’t mean your current equipment is somehow flawed. Cheung says, “They still work flawlessly. But people need to continue to scale their speed to meet the new demands of applications.”
While this may sound very technical, Cheung explains, “Our new work environments and all the new technology we use, things like Zoom and Webex, graphics, streaming, downloading, and uploading huge files, and even gaming, require more 'space.' We haven't even scratched the surface of virtual reality yet.”
Faster uploads
Consider 3-D printers, he adds, which are becoming more and more popular. "Think about the bytes required to transfer a 3D database. The amount of data needed will only increase, multifold over the years, and we're here to keep up. When you have a faster data superhighway, you can upload things so much faster than before. What took 20 minutes can be done in five."
While this may sound like it’s more suited to big businesses, it’s not. Cheung says NETGEAR’s “bread and butter will always be SMBs.” It’s essential, he advises, that as you continue to upgrade your business equipment, look for computers and phones and other hardware that are WiFi 6E compatible. If you don’t, he says, “you run the risk of not taking advantage of the benefits of a congestion-free channel for WiFi.” And as a savvy business owner, you’ll want to make use of the new technology and all it offers your business.
And as a smart and cost-conscious entrepreneur, you’ll be happy to know all this new power will only cost you about $20 more than the old system. In fact, the new WAX630E is available today for $369, while its predecessor, the WAX630, goes for$349.
WiFi 6E: The internet superhighway is here
As SMBs start to settle into their new normal, the new WiFi superhighway is here to stay. If you want to boost your team’s productivity and grow your business, you’ll want to make this leap into the future and get on that superhighway. But first, buckle up—things will be moving fast.
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