Content

1. In a short line
2. Wi-Fi 6 and 6 GHz
3. Conclusion

In a short line

About India, Samsung and Apple

The largest smartphone market in the world is China. And in second place? No, not the USA. India! Amusing news arrived that Vivo smartphones bypassed Samsung in the Indian market, establishing themselves in second place after Xiaomi. And in a year, Samsung will be behind realme.

In the thematic issue “Echo” already wrote that neither Apple nor Samsung can work in budget segments. And given that the quality of inexpensive smartphones is rapidly improving, Samsung will continue to lose markets in developing countries for a start, after which problems will knock further down the list. Apple has a more stable foundation in this regard, as the company has deeply entrenched itself in the premium / luxury segment, in which people pay not after the fact, but according to their feelings.

Samsung can’t do that. Take the boss for example. He is for Samsung, but he always says he just picks the best device. You can’t argue with that. Samsung is the best Android on the market today. But the same position also means that as soon as a better / more interesting device appears, he will switch to it. I use Samsung and I have absolutely the same position. I regularly look around the market for a more interesting solution.

It’s a fact: unlike Apple, Samsung has failed to win the selfless love of its customers. Cold rationality. And if you do not start moving in the right direction, then it is easy to stay at a broken trough.

But get it right. Apple is not in the best position, as love is a highly volatile feeling. Plus, the love of Apple fans is pretty much personalized. They loved Jobs, they loved Johnny Ive as an artist that Jobs trusted, they loved Tim Cook as someone who was approved by Jobs. Jobs died, Ive left the stage. Apple today is in dire need of not only innovative products and services, but also charismatic leaders who can take on the responsibility of supporting the love of the masses.

LG Velvet

LG continues to slowly leak information about new G-series smartphones, which the company will transfer from flagships to the middle segment (Snapdragon 765 chipset).

First, they showed smartphones from the rear in the video.

And now the front panel has been published. Of course, you have to watch it live, but so far I don’t like it. A neat, graceful neckline, but these necklines are so boring that you want either without a cutout at all, or in the form of a hole. Or what do you think?

About #sidimdom

Sitting at home makes boredom to study everything around more attentively. Once again I realized what a gorgeous time we live in. While having breakfast, I discovered that the bananas I bought had a sticker with a QR code. I scanned it, and the website of a company from Ecuador opened to me, where there was a video covering the production cycle from harvesting bananas from the plantation (half-naked Ecuadorians chopped bananas from palms with large machetes) to placing them in a container. Then, across half the globe, bananas float to me. On the packaging of mangoes, I found that they were grown in Peru, went to the site, thoughtfully watched how they grow. The oatmeal says it is made in Finland. Unfortunately, there were no videos on the site of how diligent Finns make my porridge. And if the trout breeder does not cheat, then less than 3 days have passed since they caught it, cut it, pulled out the bones, sealed it and put it on my table.

To some extent, we live better than the Russian emperors in the 18-19th century. Yes, some Alexander I did not even taste fresh mango! Fruit spoiled quickly, so they were pickled. In the 18th century there was even a verb “to mango”, which meant “pickle”.

So we are, perhaps, the first people in history who sit in quarantine with such comfort. And yet it is very scary that the virus can shut down all cities and countries like this, jeopardizing the delivery of my morning meals.

Wi-Fi 6 and 6 GHz

The other day, a colleague wrote that he was going to take a router with Wi-Fi 6 support, because it is a very interesting technology, and just a couple of days ago in the USA the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) approved the new Wi-Fi 6E standard. Wi-Fi 6, unlike 5G, will appear with us much earlier. And the technology itself is such that, I believe, many will prefer to update their hardware, so that after again for several years they will forget where the router was hidden in the apartment.

A bit of history

In terms of naming conventions, Wi-Fi is one of the most ridiculous technologies out there. Not everyone knows that the acronym Wi-Fi itself is meaningless. It’s just a made-up word. It is believed that this is a conditional onomatopoeia of the acronym Hi-Fi, which, by the way, means High Fidelity, that is, high accuracy. However, it is a misconception that Wi-Fi is Wireless Fidelity. This is not true. Anna Gentes’s excellent book, The In-Discipline of Design: Bridging the Gap Between Humanities and Engineering, which I am currently reading, has a story told by Phil Belanger, founder of the Wi-Fi Alliance:

The Wi-Fi name and yin-yang logo were invented by Interbrand. We (the founders of the Wi-Fi Alliance) hired Interbrand and were tasked with developing a name and logo that could be used for marketing purposes. We needed a more catchy title than IEEE 802.11b. The only reason why there was confusion with Wireless Fidelity is because some of my colleagues were worried. They didn’t understand what marketing and branding were. They couldn’t imagine how the word “Wi-Fi” could be used if it had no meaning, so at one time the slogan for Wi-Fi was labeled “Wireless Fidelity”. However, this was a mistake that confused people and weakened the brand.

But the ordeal with the names did not end there. Until now, a popular question on Google is whether it is necessary to write Wi-Fi or WiFi. The confusion is probably due to the logo, which does not have a hyphen. The correct spelling followed by the Wi-Fi Alliance is Wi-Fi, hyphenated and capitalized.

Further confusion happened with the versions with Wi-Fi. Usually, when they list Wi-Fi standards, they write b / g / n … First there was Wi-Fi “b”, and then Wi-Fi “a”. It should also be noted that Wi-Fi b used 2.4 GHz and was compatible with “g” and “n” networks. But Wi-Fi “a” uses 5 GHz and is not compatible with other networks.

By the way, we somehow got used to the fact that usually when describing Wi-Fi they write b / g / n, etc. But this does not mean that there were no other letters. For example, Wi-Fi “d” was not even a standard, but a minor update that included various new information, such as additional specifications for access points.

Then they more or less leveled off and when naming they simply began to use letters in alphabetical order. Wi-Fi g was followed by h and i. And then everything broke down again, and there was Wi-Fi 2007, then Wi-Fi n, Wi-Fi 2012, and then all of a sudden Wi-Fi ad, and then Wi-Fi ac. And if with Wi-Fi ad it is even more or less clear that this is a combination of standards “a” and additions “d”, then Wi-Fi ac is the direct successor of Wi-Fi n, developing its technologies. And the number of letter standards is multiplying: aj, ah, ak and even ba and u are. By the way, Wi-Fi ba is a pretty promising technology for the Internet of Things, aimed at maximizing device battery savings. And “u” is also known as Hotspot 2.0 and implies an easy and secure connection to public networks, that is, for example, at the airport, the smartphone will connect to the official Wi-Fi by itself, and there will be no need to wade through the jungle of networks.

In 2018, the Wi-Fi Alliance again remembered marketing and decided to simplify the lives of users by introducing digital designation. Now, the higher the number, the better and more modern the wireless standard. And they even got confused with icons.

In theory, they should be displayed in the tray, but so far this is only implemented with Wi-Fi 6.

What’s wrong with current networks?

Wi-Fi 6 is currently the most modern wireless Internet standard. Its main task is to “unload” clogged networks. For example, look at how bad the 2.4 GHz band looks in my home and how quiet and spacious at 5.0 GHz.

In the crowded space of apartment buildings, Wi-Fi networks using the same channels overlap, causing significant problems. For example, with one friend, we could not talk via video communication, either on WhatsApp or on Skype. The image hung, broke up into squares, the sound often disappeared, and in general the connection was torn. In quarantine, she began working from home, so she had to use mobile communications to call at work. At first, by inertia, I sinned on the iPhone, then I offered to reboot the router and only then I realized that it was necessary to clarify and what network it was using. It was worth switching to 5.0 GHz, and everything flew.

However, firstly, despite the fact that 5 GHz has been around for a long time, most are inert and prefer not to bother using the network that the router provides by default. And we are not talking about installing at least a basic analyzer of Wi-Fi networks and choosing the least loaded channel. If you have not done something like this, then I recommend it. If Windows, then right in the Microsoft Store there is a free Wi-Fi Analyzer, turn it on, look, allow it to evaluate the channels, in the router settings select the one that the program has marked with an asterisk. There are plenty of similar programs for both Android and iOS. When choosing a channel at a frequency of 5 GHz, you should choose the smallest one, since the lower the frequency, the better the signal penetration. Along the way, it is important to know that channels above 140 were banned in Russia. Now the ban has been lifted, but if I’m not lying, the iPhone still does not have support for these channels, like the old Samsung.

Secondly, the 5 GHz frequency has a lower penetrating power, so it is desirable that the router be in the line of sight. It is because of this that all smart home appliances operate at 2.4 GHz. By the way, a short range is at the same time a positive feature of the range, since it is less likely that different networks will overlap.

Wi-Fi 6

Wi-Fi 6 has several advantages.

First, it is, of course, speed. In theory, Wi-Fi 6 will give the user 37% faster speeds than Wi-Fi 5. But whether users will notice the difference in speed is a question. But the fact that less latency is likely to be appreciated. The latency is expected to drop to 10ms.

Secondly, Wi-Fi 6 provides a 4-fold increase in network bandwidth and number of concurrent users compared to Wi-Fi 5. That is, more users can simultaneously work on the network.

Third, the power consumption of the devices will improve. Not everyone will notice, since the current Wi-Fi is not too gluttonous.

To make all these improvements happen, many technologies are used:

• Wi-Fi 6 uses MU-MIMO (MU = Multi User). If you forget, then MIMO is a technology that allows you to increase the channel capacity by using multiple antennas, and the transmitting and receiving antennas are separated so as not to correlate. And if MIMO works only for shipping, then MU-MIMO works for both loading and shipping.
• Another technology is OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access). The feature of OFDMA is that it divides channels into smaller subchannels / segments, distributing devices not only by channels, but also by sub-segments. This does not increase speed, but it allows everyone to work in cramped conditions, but not in offense.
• Wi-Fi 6 routers can also combine the 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz bands, thus creating even more channels.
• Energy savings are achieved due to the fact that Wi-Fi 6 routers are great managers. They can schedule and inform the user device when it will receive data, and while the smartphone or laptop is waiting for the appointed time, they may not waste energy on contact.

Wi-Fi 6E

A few days ago, the US Communications Commission authorized Wi-Fi 6E. In fact, the commission allowed the use of 6 GHz for Wi-Fi. A whole new band, which is like 5.0 GHz, only bigger!

The bottom line is that the 2.4 GHz channel is very narrow. Its bandwidth is only 80 MHz. You can compare this with a suburban highway, one lane in each direction. Each car drives one after the other. In turn, the frequency is 5.0 GHz with a width of 500 MHz. I don’t know which road it can be compared to: it is something multi-lane, but relatively short, so the distance to the router should be small. You can probably compare it with Leningradsky Prospekt from the Moscow Ring Road.

But the 6 GHz frequency has a bandwidth of 1200 MHz. And if we compare it with the road, then let it be the same Leningradsky Prospekt, but in the area of ​​the third transport ring. There are many lanes, but the section is very short.

I believe that the main application of Wi-Fi 6 will find in situations where two nearby devices need to exchange a large amount of data. An example is stadiums. Many Wi-Fi 6E routers will be placed there, and people, thanks to the wide channel, will be able to connect all together.

If we don’t know what to do with 5G communication, then we will master fast Wi-Fi without problems. Better video quality, better games, easier to download movies from torrents. And most importantly, everything is smooth!

The Wi-Fi upgrade to version 6 will be a milestone. How long it will take for implementation is unclear. Most likely, at least a couple of years, since the active distribution of the Wi-Fi Alliance promises from the beginning of 2021. Unfortunately, even if your device supports Wi-Fi 6, it is unlikely that it supports 6 GHz. So if you wanted to update your router (though from what?), It might be better to wait a year until the most versatile devices go on sale.

Conclusion

The mood in quarantine is perfectly reflected by the Bulldogs. Their sad faces with big eyes and an irregular bite, giving additional tragedy, fall in unison with the current attitude of many self-isolated.

You sit yourself like this, you are sad, but the end and edge is not visible. Best of all, the bulldog with the speaking name Big Poppa did it. It is unlikely that its owner knew what the name of the bulldog in Russian was consonant with, but the hit was accurate. I really want to call everything that happens Big Poppa.

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