{"id":5183,"date":"2023-10-26T22:11:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T22:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/what-do-wi-fi-numbers-actually-mean"},"modified":"2023-10-26T22:11:53","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T22:11:53","slug":"what-do-wi-fi-numbers-actually-mean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/what-do-wi-fi-numbers-actually-mean\/","title":{"rendered":"What do Wi-Fi numbers actually mean?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wi-Fi is ubiquitous in modern life, with the average American household having 22 connected devices. You might have noticed the naming scheme changed, with Wi-Fi numbers instead of letters after the name. But what does that mean, exactly? Well, in the proud tradition of bigger numbers = better, Wi-Fi has improved with every new standard. These improvements brought more bandwidth, better range, and the ability for more connected devices. What they also brought was a headache, as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers&#8217; (IEEE) 802.11 naming scheme was confusing. Seriously, why was 802.11b the first version of Wi-Fi, with 802.11a coming afterward? It took until the fourth iteration of Wi-Fi that the Wi-Fi Alliance decided it needed a simpler name. Enter Wi-Fi 4 or 802.11n if you&#8217;re still part of the IEEE. Now we&#8217;re almost on Wi-Fi 7, with devices coming out before the standard is made official. So what does that Wi-Fi number mean? We&#8217;ll explain the different Wi-Fi versions and why you want a particular generation. Wi-Fi numbers throughout the years Old nameNew NameYear introducedMaximum SpeedBands802.11b&#8211;199911Mbps2.4GHz802.11a&#8211;199954Mbps5GHz802.11g&#8211;200354Mbps2.4GHz802.11nWi-Fi 42009600Mbps2.4GHz and 5GHz802.11acWi-Fi 520133.46Gbps5GHz802.11axWi-Fi 6201910.53Gbps2.4GHz and 5GHz802.11axWi-Fi 6E202010.53Gbps2.4GHz, 5GHz, 6GHz802.11beWi-Fi 72024 (expected)40Gbps2.4GHz, 5GHz, 6GHz .stk-0fcddf9{height:26px !important} What does Wi-Fi actually stand for? Source: Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi is such a recognizable name that you probably already know what it stands for, right? After all, if Hi-Fi is &#8220;high fidelity, &#8221; Wi-Fi is &#8220;wireless fidelity,&#8221; right? Well, not really. As Cory Doctorow writes, a founding member of the Wi-Fi Alliance said, &#8220;Wi-Fi doesn&#8217;t&#8230;<a href=\"https:\/\/knowtechie.com\/what-do-wi-fi-numbers-actually-mean\/\">What do Wi-Fi numbers actually mean?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wi-Fi is ubiquitous in modern life, with the average American household having 22 connected devices. You might have noticed the naming scheme changed, with Wi-Fi numbers instead of letters after&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1447,300,627,3031,12,295,68,2127],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.godefy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}