Mobile carriers have spent millions touting the benefits of 5G over the past several years. Their bragging makes it easy to forget that most devices spend a significant amount of their time connected to Wi-Fi. This is true even of smartphones and, of course, absolutely true of your PC.

Yet people pay relatively little attention to their Wi-Fi network. Most tuck the router provided by the ISP in a corner and call it a day. That’s a mistake. Upgrading your home Wi-Fi can make every internet-connected device in your home more enjoyable to use.

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Wi-Fi deserves your attention. Here’s what you need to know.

Wi-Fi 6 is a big upgrade
Wi-Fi 6, less frequently referred to as 802.11ax, is the latest Wi-Fi standard. Wi-Fi 6 routers have technically been available since 2019 but, as usual, the technology did not immediately arrive in budget routers. Odds are you don’t have a Wi-Fi 6 router unless you purchased a router in 2021. The same is true if your router is provided by your ISP.

It’s an important upgrade. Wi-Fi 5 is fine, but Wi-Fi 6 improves on it by offering new radio channels that provide more bandwidth. Wi-Fi 6 also uses a pair of technologies, MU-MIMO and OFDMA, to improve a router’s ability to manage traffic between devices.

https://www.pcworld.com/article/552421/wi-fi-performance-matters-more-than-you-think.html