I've only owned a Wi-Fi 6 router for less than a year, and already a (slightly) new wireless standard is slowly penetrating the market. It's Wi-Fi 6E, and, well, that's what it is. In this case, Intel is preparing its first Wi-Fi 6E adapter, the AX210.

This is not an official announcement (no press release, no major announcement) and may not be announced until early next year. Intel also appears to have registered the Wi-Fi 6E adapter with the Eurasian Economic Commission, a popular landing pad for products being prepared for launch.

So what is Wi-Fi 6E, a sort of extended version of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) that supports the same features and technologies, including OFDMA, which is powerful in congested networks. However, in addition to connectivity in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, Wi-Fi 6E adds a 6GHz band. [6 GHz addresses the Wi-Fi spectrum shortage by providing contiguous blocks of spectrum to accommodate 14 additional 80 MHz channels and seven additional 160 MHz channels. the Wi-Fi Alliance said in January that "Wi-Fi 6E devices will be able to take advantage of the wider channels and additional capacity to . to deliver higher network performance and support more Wi-Fi users at once, even in very dense and congested environments"

, and that "the Wi-Fi 6E device will be able to support more Wi-Fi users at once, even in very dense and congested environments.

Incidentally, the theoretical maximum throughput of both Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E is 9.6 Gbps over multiple channels, not that the latter is inherently faster. The advantage of Wi-Fi 6E, however, is the added spectrum. By moving some connections to the 6 GHz band, network congestion could be reduced, resulting in faster device speeds. It would be like adding another lane to the freeway to relieve rush hour congestion.

A very big caveat to this is consumer hardware. At this time, there is not a single laptop, smartphone, or other device that supports Wi-Fi 6E. This is where Intel's new adapter comes in. This adapter can be attached to a laptop to support the latest wireless standard.

But to use the 6 GHz band, you also need a Wi-Fi 6E router. I am currently aware of only one model, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE 11000, which was announced in September and is not yet available in retail stores.

Still, Wi-Fi 6E devices simply do not exist and offer little advantage right now; Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) connect without problems, but the benefits of the 6 GHz band will not be used for the foreseeable future.

This is a caveat that also applies to Wi-Fi 6: a Wi-Fi 6 router and multiple Wi-Fi 6 devices are needed to take full advantage of this standard. So if you have just purchased a Wi-Fi 6 router, don't think you've made a big mistake; Wi-Fi 6E will still take time to penetrate the market, and by that time you may be ready to purchase a new router.