The 5G promises we have heard are higher speed connections, lower latency, and ubiquitous coverage. The truth is that you may get one or two of these functions, but not all of them can be obtained at the same time.

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The battle between 5G and Wi-Fi 6
The 5G promises we have heard are higher speed connections, lower latency, and ubiquitous
coverage. The truth is that you may get one or two of these functions, but not all of them can be
obtained at the same time.
The 5G standard uses radio frequency bands from GHz to 40GHz. In a rural environment, there
are few cellular base stations, far away from the narrow-band Internet of Things (NB-IoT), and the
sub-GHz spectrum will definitely provide better coverage, but at the cost of speed and latency.
The ultra-high-speed connection speed will be realized at a higher frequency (25-40GHz) but at
the cost of distance. Users need to be within one mile of the tower, and urban objects such as
buildings, vehicles, and trees are likely to have a weakened effect on signal strength.
The 5G licensed spectrum suppresses potential interference that may occur in the unlicensed
Wi-Fi spectrum, which is shared by many other wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and
microwave ovens. 5G will be provided by cellular wireless operators, but like Wi-Fi, it can also be
built into a dedicated network by deploying its own access point.
5G's high-GHz band architecture requires more wireless access points. Indoor space users need
to evaluate infrastructure and may deploy indoor microcells, repeaters, and distributed antennas
to solve indoor 5G service problems.
5G aims to achieve true mobile connectivity, such as:
Public transportation and safety vehicles
The external environment, such as mining, oil and gas extraction, agriculture, some
manufacturing, and campus or leisure areas
5G has advantages in the IoT market (NB-IoT, LPWAN). As the 5G standard matures, the
technology will improve its choice of low-power IoT connections. In the next few years, 5G will be
promoted in mainstream cities and specific geographic locations; 4G technology will remain
popular for several years. Users will need new devices, dongles, and routers to connect to 5G
services, while IoT devices will need specific cellular compatibility to connect to 5G.
What is Wi-Fi6?
At present, Wi-Fi has become the universal standard for connecting mobile phones, laptops,
tablets, and other portable or fixed devices to the local area network. Wi-Fi6 (802.11ax) is the
latest version of Wi-Fi and is expected to increase speed, reduce latency, improve aggregate
bandwidth and provide advanced user traffic management, which will help reduce
disconnections.
Both 5G and Wi-Fi6 are based on orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA).
Compared to previous Wi-Fi standards, Wi-Fi 6 is less susceptible to interference, requires less
power (which will extend the battery life of the device), and has improved spectral efficiency. In
essence, it is better at packing data into signals.
Wi-Fi6 provides full support for technologies such as multi-user, multi-input, and multi-output
(MU-MIMO) connection quality, which will greatly improve compatible mobile devices; this will
speed up content delivery. Wi-Fi6 is also backward compatible with the old Wi-Fi standard.
What about the winner?

2. C&T RF Antennas Inc
www.ctrfantennas.com rfproducts1@ctrfantennas.com
Please Contact us for more information, thank you.
 Jasmine Lu (+86)17322110281
The reality is that 5G and Wi-Fi6 are developing in parallel, and the two are largely
complementary. Based on different environments, one may be more appropriate, but some user
cases overlap. From the beginning of this year to the end of the 1920s, this will create an
interesting competitive environment.