Because marketing people like to make things confusing, we have Wifi 6, and now Wifi 6E. So what is the difference?
Both are based on the 802.11ax standard, so no difference there.
What 6E does is introduce support for the 6GHz frequency, which means more channels, less CCI, and the ability to deploy wider channel widths.
Like the 5GHz spectrum though, different countries have allowed different parts of the spectrum to be available for 802.11 use, and like 2.4GHz and 5GHz, this is unlicensed spectrum*. Another thing to note is that currently 6E is only approved for indoor use.
Let’s break down what 6E actually introduces:

  • Capacity: In America, they get 1200MHz of extra spectrum, which is broken up into 59 new channels. In Australia, we aren’t as fortunate though, and only get frequencies between 5925-6425 MHz.
  • Compatibility: Devices that don’t support Wifi 6E aren’t able to use the 6GHz band, so no more backwards compatibility issues.
  • Security: WPA3 or Enhanced Open is mandatory on 6GHz. That’s right, no WEP, WPA, or even WPA2!

As of March 2022, ACMA approved the use of the 5925-6425 MHz frequency band for use in Australia. From the image below, that means that we have access to the U-NII 5 part of the spectrum. Hopefully not too far off, we will see the addition of further spectrum allocation, to allow for more channels to be available in Australia. 6E Whilst it’s not the full 1200MHz, this is still a significant chunk of spectrum which allows for scaling up to 6 x 80MHz wide channels if required, 12 x 40MHz channels, and 24 x 20MHz channels. Even taking 6 non-overlapping 80MHz wide channels it still gives us a reasonable amount of re-use with a lower chance of CCI.

6E also levels up on security and requires WPA3 SAE (WPA3 Personal), 802.1X-SHA256 (WPA3 Enterprise), or Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE), with no backwards compatibility for WPA2 or Open SSIDs, including no option for transition modes.
Because of these requirements, it is also mandatory for Protected Management Frames (PMF - 802.11w) to be implemented.

Depending on the country you are in, as to when 6E support was added in the 9800, but for Australia, it requires a minimum of 17.12 release in order to be able to enable the 6GHz radio on a supported AP (such as the 9136, and 9160 series of APs). Again, this is approved for indoor use only, but hopefully in the future, we will see the addition of outdoor use added.

In another post, we will look at how clients discover 6E only SSIDs, how they discover 6GHz SSIDs from the existing 2.4GHz and 5GHz SSIDs, and how to configure it all on a 9800 Controller.