Operators are an obstacle to upgrading WiFi 6

Issue 1245

Operators are an obstacle to upgrading WiFi 6

Text | Li Xin, editor-in-charge of | Wang Ye

The cover page executes the | Wang Ye planned | Liu Keli Proofreading | Liu Fangzuo

Nowadays, whether the user handles home broadband from mobile, Unicom, or telecommunications, it will be forcibly bound to a wireless router by the operator, and the wireless router port is directly connected to the optical fiber, ordinary users cannot directly skip the router given by the operator and access the Internet, and all the router upgrade and expansion operations must be integrated in the secondary network of the operator router. Why would operators do this? Here's why:

Operators will profit from secondary consumption

If there is no operator to force the installation of their own router (binding and built-in set-top box function), then the sales of home WiFi 6 routers will increase by at least 20%. But since operators have collected money, they must master the traffic port. Turn on the TV, in addition to being able to use the router to access the Internet, you can also watch paid TV programs to achieve the user's secondary consumption. Why not?

Small white users have no way to start

Conscientious operators will leave you a gigabit network cable port, individual small operators simply connect the network cable port for you to remove, or the gigabit port network cable is only used for their own TV box, but for most ordinary small white users do not know at all, or know that there is no way to start.

The second router becomes a child router

For users who do not understand the network at all, as long as there is a router that can access the Internet, no longer continue to consider tossing it. But for people with special needs, expanding the second router will consider what kind of router they want to buy, and this router will become a sub-router even if the first is a garbage router. From the perspective of user needs, whether it is a WiFi 6 router does not seem to be so important, but whether the operator's annual bandwidth matches the actual bandwidth of the router I bought myself, my router can play the performance of the actual bandwidth.

WiFi 6 accounts for less than 45% of e-commerce sales

When WiFi 6 technology was launched in 2019, it was followed by a large number of routers equipped with WiFi 6 technology, with product prices ranging from 150 yuan to thousands of yuan. From the overall pricing point of view, the general WiFi 6 function of the router is indeed slightly 15% higher than the previous generation of WiFi 5 price, but it is not at all unacceptable. Why don't you think users take the initiative to buy WiFi 6 products?

However, at present, taking Jingdong Mall as an example, among the router products sold, the products that focus on WiFi 6 technology account for about 45% of the entire router search keywords. The price range of centralized purchase by users is 200 yuan-500 yuan. Compared with WiFi 6 routers, users prefer dual-band Gigabit WiFi 5 routers, and ASUS and Netmatsu routers that can provide users with third-party plug-ins are more popular. In other words, when users choose a router, they do not pay too much attention to whether the router is a WiFi 6 product, but whether the router can support upgrades and has playability.

The upgrade iteration of the router is not just needed

In fact, the router is not like a notebook, with a few years to change one, the vast majority of users for the router requirements is to be able to connect to the Internet on the line, as for the speed of the network is more dependent on the package purchased by the operator, so the upgrade and replacement of the router is not so frequent. There are still a large number of WiFi 5 router products in the market because of its competitive cost performance, and WiFi 5 technology is mature (such as Asus AC68U can brush Merlin firmware, the explosion of e-commerce blockbusters), dual-band Gigabit can also meet the user's home use. The advent of WiFi 6 routers did not delist WiFi 5 routers.

WiFi 7 is 2.4 times faster and is not going well either

At the MediaTek Technology Conference on November 19, 2021, the standard for WiFi 7 was announced, and the theoretical speed reached 2.4 times the current WiFi 6E speed. Broadcom's WiFi 7 technology will be released in 2022. We thought we would be able to see more about WiFi 7 at this year's CES 2022 show, but it didn't. Today, WiFi 6 is not as smooth as we think, and there are still more than half of WiFi 5 products on the market.

Editor's comments: The upgrade of technology is to allow users to enjoy better technical convenience and services, for end users, the operator's throttling does cause certain troubles to users to upgrade and expand the router, high-end players pay attention to playability, and do not care whether it is WiFi 6, ordinary players can use the operator's own route. I am afraid that the promotion of the WiFi 6 market is still in the commercial field.