Qualcomm has announced two new chipsets with support for wifi 6E. The FastConnect 6900 and 6700 will appear in the second half of this year.
The mobile chips, the FastConnect 6700 and FastConnect 6900 can reach a theoretical top speed of 3 Gbit/s and 3.6 Gbit/s. The new chips can reach this speed because of the new support for wifi 6E.
According to Qualcomm, the FastConnect 6900 uses dual-band simultaneous to reach 3.6 Gbit/s. This means that devices transmit data over multiple parts of the spectrum simultaneously and therefore achieve better speeds. They also benefit from less interference, as most other wifi connections still use the existing bands. The FastConnect 6700 does not have that support and therefore, only reaches a speed of 3 Gbit/s. The chipsets also support Bluetooth 5.2.
Qualcomm uses the FastConnect chips for its Snapdragon processors that run on many high-end Android phones. The company wants to release the FastConnect 6900 and 6700 before 2021.
Qualcomm is also announcing four new Networking Pro chips for routers with wifi 6E integration. These new chips can reach a speed between 5.4 Gbit/s and 10.8 Gbit/s and are available immediately.
Wifi 6E
Earlier this year, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced the expansion of wifi 6, previously known as 802.11ax. This means that devices can use the 6 GHz frequency band in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. The expansion to the 6 GHz wifi spectrum should free up additional capacity and reduce the amount of interference between wifi connections.