WiFi Standards Chart

Today, every home and business, owners have a WiFi Router and looking for a reliable network. But Because of the rapid growth of this technology they face many sorts of acronyms for WiFi standards. You should be familiar with wifi standards specifications, they all basically mean a few things:

• How far can the wireless signal reach
• How much data can the signal send
• Is it backwards compatible with other standards

To make it easier to understand, Just think how far can a wireless signal go, and how fast can it transmit data. Now the standards will make more sense.

Wifi standards rapidly changed every few years to bring faster internet, better connections and more simultaneous users.

What is “WiFi” and “IEEE 802.11” ?

You may all have heard about the IEEE 802.11 and WiFi  standards, almost both have the same meaning but the term WiFi is synonymous with wireless access in general. WiFi is a specific trademark owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, a group dedicated to certifying that WiFi products meet the IEEE 802.11 wireless standards.

Best WiFi Routers :

[Product_Table id=’19100′ name=’Best WiFi Router For Home 2023  Table’]

WiFi Standards Specifications

Speed and Frequency are two fundamental changes in WiFi standards. 

• Speed means How much data the wireless network can transmit.
• Frequency means what radio frequency the data is carried on. These are either 2.4Ghz , 5 Ghz and 6Ghz.

Read More: How to Extend WiFi Range

Here’s a WiFi standards chart (Table) of each 802.11 standards type based on its designation:

Update :

From April 2020, the WiFi 6E standard was officially introduced and the 6Ghz frequency was added to the allowed frequencies of WiFi networks.

Standards compatibility considerations in WiFi Routers:

• 802.11ax WiFi 6E Router is a Dual-band or Tri-band router(2.4Ghz
  ,5Ghz , 6Ghz bands)  and can communicate with 802.11b/g/n/ac/ax and 6Ghz-compatible clients.
• 802.11ax WiFi 6 Router is a Dual-band or Tri-band router(2.4Ghz ,5Ghz bands)  and can communicate with 802.11b/g/n/ac/ax clients.
• 802.11ac WiFi Router is a Dual-Band or Tri-band router and can communicate with 802.11b/g/n/ac clients.
• 802.11n single band WiFi Router (2.4Ghz band) can communicate with 802.11b/g/n clients in 2.4Ghz frequency band.
• 802.11n dual band WiFi Router(2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands)  can communicate with 802.11 b/g/n clients in both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequency bands.
• 802.11g WiFi Router(2.4Ghz band) can communicate with 802.11b/g devices.
• 802.11b WiFi Router(2.4Ghz band) can communicate with only 802.11b devices.

Read More:  What is WiFi Channel and Channel Width

New WiFi Standards Naming Convention

Over time, different classifications of WiFi networks were given different naming conventions. All of them are using the same scheme for example:

•  802.11ac as a router’s communication generation.
• 802.11k as a router’s communication capability (for roaming issues in enterprise WiFi networks).

As you see , both using the same schema, and it can be a little confusing for users to understand and differentiate between them.

Recently , the WiFi standard has changed to a new classification, to help make it easier for consumers to understand. Instead of memorizing a dual-purposed alphabet combination, they can use a simple naming. As can see in the followint table , you can use “WiFi 5” instead of “802.11ac or “WiFi 6” instead of “802.11ax” .