Cost-effective transition to Wi-Fi 5 standard in Small Office / Home Office (SOHO) environment

Abstract

Wireless connectivity has become a de-facto standard in daily computer use, both in small office/home office environment and in large business organisations. The beginnings of wireless connectivity started with the 802.11a and b standard, which enabled a theoretical data rate of 54 and 11 Mbit/s. The umbrella organisation Wi-Fi Alliance has decided to use a simplified naming scheme for wireless standards, so the currently widespread standard 802.11n (aggregate rate up to 600 Mbit/s) will now be named Wi-Fi 4, and the standard 802.11ac (aggregate rate up to 7 Gbit/s1) will be called Wi-Fi 5. In addition, Wi-Fi 6 or 802.11ax is in course of preparation and will enable theoretical rates of up to 10 Gbit/s. The answer to the question of whether there is a rationale for switching to Wi-Fi 5 will be provided by measuring the performance of Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 standards according to the following criteria: Wi-Fi signal strength in 2.4 and 5 GHz frequency bands, average throughput – data rate (transmitting and receiving data), maximum throughput and playback of 4K video content in a simulated SOHO environment. Performance ratio (performance per price) is also calculated.