Wi-Fi 6, the sixth generation of the Wi-Fi standard, has been rolling out across enterprise and business environments over the past few years, and an increasing number of VoIP phones now include Wi-Fi 6 support as part of their connectivity options. For businesses evaluating wireless-capable phones or upgrading their wireless network infrastructure, understanding what Wi-Fi 6 brings to the table for VoIP specifically helps inform better purchasing decisions.
Wi-Fi 6, formally known as 802.11ax, is the successor to Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and introduces several important improvements in how wireless devices share and use available spectrum. The headline specification for Wi-Fi 6 is faster maximum throughput, but for VoIP applications the more relevant improvements are in efficiency, latency, and performance in dense device environments.
Wi-Fi 6 introduces OFDMA, or Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access, which allows a single wireless transmission to carry data for multiple devices simultaneously rather than serving devices sequentially. It also introduces BSS Coloring, a mechanism that allows nearby access points operating on the same channel to be better distinguished from each other, reducing interference in dense deployments. And it includes Target Wake Time, which schedules when devices communicate with the access point, reducing the amount of time devices need their radios active and allowing more devices to coexist without degrading each other’s performance.
VoIP calls are highly sensitive to two things: latency and consistency. A brief spike in network latency causes a perceptible delay in a voice call. Inconsistent latency, known as jitter, causes audio to sound choppy or garbled. In an office environment where many wireless devices are competing for access to the same access point, these conditions are more likely to occur than in a lightly loaded environment.
Wi-Fi 6’s OFDMA scheduling reduces the queue of devices waiting for access to the channel, which directly reduces latency for time-sensitive traffic like voice calls. The efficiency improvements mean that even as the number of wireless devices in an office grows, the per-device performance degrades more gracefully than with previous Wi-Fi generations. For a busy office with many employees using wireless devices simultaneously, a Wi-Fi 6 network provides a more stable and consistent environment for VoIP calls than Wi-Fi 5 infrastructure under the same load conditions.
Wi-Fi 6 support is appearing in the upper tiers of major IP phone manufacturers’ lineups. Grandstream includes Wi-Fi 6 in models like the GRP2601W and GHP630W. Yealink incorporates Wi-Fi 6 in several of its premium phone models. The availability of Wi-Fi 6 in phones that are otherwise mid-range in their feature positioning reflects the technology’s maturity and the expectation that enterprise Wi-Fi 6 infrastructure will become the norm over the next few years.
For businesses currently upgrading their wireless infrastructure to Wi-Fi 6 access points, choosing Wi-Fi 6-capable phones ensures that the phones are aligned with the network’s capabilities for the duration of the hardware’s lifecycle, which is typically five to seven years for business IP phones.
The answer depends on your current and planned wireless infrastructure. If your office is running Wi-Fi 5 access points with no near-term plans to upgrade, Wi-Fi 6 phones will connect to those access points using Wi-Fi 5 capability, delivering no additional benefit. The Wi-Fi 6 radio in the phone is backward compatible with previous Wi-Fi generations, but it only operates at Wi-Fi 6 when connected to a Wi-Fi 6 access point.
If your organization is currently deploying or planning to deploy Wi-Fi 6 access points, choosing Wi-Fi 6-capable phones makes sense for any purchase that will remain in service through that transition. You will not see the full benefits immediately if the access points are not yet upgraded, but you will not need to replace the phones when the network is upgraded either.
For offices with dense wireless environments where call quality on Wi-Fi has been inconsistent, upgrading to Wi-Fi 6 infrastructure alongside Wi-Fi 6-capable phones can produce noticeable improvements in wireless call quality. The combination addresses the root causes of wireless voice quality issues in high-density environments more effectively than either upgrade alone.
It is worth noting that Wi-Fi 6 phones and DECT phones address the same need from different starting points. DECT uses a dedicated wireless band free from Wi-Fi interference and is the more established and broadly supported standard for business wireless voice. Wi-Fi 6 phones leverage existing Wi-Fi infrastructure without requiring separate DECT base stations. For environments with excellent Wi-Fi 6 coverage and management, Wi-Fi phones eliminate the need for separate DECT infrastructure. For environments where wireless reliability is critical and DECT’s dedicated band provides more predictable performance, DECT remains the stronger choice.
