What is Wi-Fi 6?

The next generation of Wi-Fi is here. With everyone constantly streaming and gaming, our households are overdue a speed increase. Now coming as standard with our Superfast Fibre and Full Fibre Broadband plans, our Wi-Fi 6 routers are here to help make sure every one of your devices has a strong and stable connection.

What is Wi-Fi 6?

Wi-Fi 6 is an advancement into the future of wireless connectivity. While it’s geared towards offering internet access with fewer interruptions, it also ties into a range of extra technologies that enhance performance and efficiency. Which means better connections for the modern, multi-device household.

How fast is Wi-Fi 6?

The short answer is 9.6 Gbps, which is almost three times the amount of Wi-Fi 5’s 3.5Gbps. However, when using a single device on the network, you might not necessarily notice that speed. The real benefit of the speed increase can be experienced when Wi-Fi 6 is split across multiple devices.

In the age of smart homes, the number of devices in our households that rely on Wi-Fi has increased significantly. But with old Wi-Fi, a home with lots of small smart devices, such as light bulbs or radiator thermostats, can also mean your game taking longer to download, or movie streaming interrupted by endless buffering. This is because an older Wi-Fi router can’t effectively direct the ‘traffic’ of all those smaller devices, even if they don’t take up much space on the network.

Wi-Fi 6 solves this problem with network management technology, which allows the router to handle numerous devices buzzing back and forth on a crowded network. The result? Smoother use of all your connected devices, big or small. Things just… happen.

How secure is Wi-Fi 6?

In addition to helping you save energy and improve how your connected devices work, Wi-Fi 6 comes with the latest security protocol, WPA3.

A key strength is the protection it offers against offline, password-guessing attacks. This is where an attacker can intercept data from your Wi-Fi signal, transfer it to their private computer, then repeatedly attempt to guess your password until they succeed. WPA3 limits that attacker’s ability to guess, giving them a single opportunity before putting up more blockers to prevent further tries.

Another useful feature introduced by WPA3 is ‘forward secrecy’, which safeguards older data from being compromised. Even if an attacker manages to intercept an encrypted Wi-Fi transmission and decrypts the password, they’d still be unable to access previously transmitted data. All they’d be able to access is any new information that’s currently flowing on the network.

What range does it have?

Compared to older Wi-Fi versions, which used 5 GHz only, Wi-Fi 6 provides the best range and speed. It’s all down to its use of the dream team of 5 GHz for speed and 2.4 GHz for range. Advances in technology have recently improved the speed of 2.4 GHz, too, so modern smart households can get the very best of both worlds.

Shell Energy is here to help.

Are you excited by the possibilities Wi-Fi 6 could unlock in your household? Discover how you can get the new hub with one of our Superfast Fibre or Full Fibre broadband plans†.

The legal bit

†Wi-Fi 6: Wi-Fi hub is fully backwards-compatible with Wi-Fi 5 devices and older. However, full features and benefits of Wi-Fi 6, can only be experienced on Wi-Fi 6 compatible devices. Wi-Fi coverage and user speed can be impacted by home environment, building materials, device limitations, number of users and time of day, hub location, and choice of broadband package. View the Wi-Fi 6 hub certification.

Explore Wi-Fi 6 technology benefits.

Our Wi-Fi 6 hub is available to new customers who sign up for Shell Energy Superfast Fibre or Full Fibre Services on an 18 month Minimum Period contract. If you’re currently with Shell Energy Broadband, you may be eligible to upgrade to the Wi-Fi 6 hub. A new 18-month Minimum Period contract to the relevant Superfast Fibre or Full Fibre Service will apply. To find out if you’re eligible, call us on 0330 094 9181.

Use of the Wi-Fi 6 hub is subject to our Terms and Conditions.