Technical Guide to 6GHz for MSPs, ISPs and SPs

by Marco Papavero | Dec 23, 2022 | Network Troubleshooting, Networking, TanazaOS, Wi-Fi Diagnostic Tools, Wireless Hardware

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Technical Guide to 6GHz for MSPs, ISPs and SPs

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the technical guide to 6GHz
for MSPs, ISPs and SPs.

After only two years after the approval by the FCC regulations and Wi-Fi Alliance (and the progressive approval by the national regulatory authorities in Japan, UE, Latin America) to open up the 6GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi broadcasting, the main networking OEMs have already launched the first WiFi6E access points.

The number of 6GHz supported access points is expected to reach 2.3 billion of which 350 million are Wi-Fi 6E capable. More than 400 products are now Wi-Fi 6E certified, Wi-Fi Alliance says.
Wi-Fi 6 APs constituted more than 76% of the shipments in the period according to IDC.

In previous articles, we have discussed this frequency range, the future of WiFi6E – WiFi 7 and the differences between 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

In this article, we have written a technical guide about the 6GHz frequency for MSPs, ISPs, SPs and about the differences between 6GHz, 5GHz and 2.4GHz.

Recently, Lee Badman – one of the most important authorities in the networking sector – has expressed his frustration about the lack of technical documentation for wireless products and technologies. As tech lovers, before being networking professionals, we can only agree.

This technical guide is quite long, but its length is fundamental to explain all the facets of the revolutionary 6Ghz.

Readers can click on the following links to jump to the interested section.

– The 6GHz band frequency
– What are the benefits of the 6GHz band?
– Features introduced by the 6GHz band
– Airtime efficiency
– Faster passive/active AP discovery
– What is the difference between 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz?
– List of Tanaza Powered Devices and Tanaza Compatible Devices that supports 6GHz

The 6GHz band frequency

The 6GHz frequency, introduced with the new Wi-Fi 6E standard (802.11 ax), works in the worldwide range between 5.925 and 7.125 GHz (1200MHz grant of the spectrum) and has a theoretical top speed of 9.6 Gbps (the same as the 5GHz).
While the 6 GHz band is continuous and channelized across the entire 1200 MHz, network users are active in all sub-bands. The 6 GHz band frequency uses 59 channels of 20 MHz bandwidth. The channel numbers overlap with the current 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band.

Following the same distribution model of the other bands, each country has enabled the spectrum in different sub-bands.

The FCC has designated four sub-bands for the US territory: U-NII-5, 6, 7, and 8.
The EU Commission, instead, allows network operators to exploit the “U-NII-5 equivalent” part of the band, the lower one: 480 MHz after the 20 MHz guard band.

Countries	Status	Spectrum
Argentina	Considering	5925-6425 MHz
Australia	Adopted - Considering	5925-6425 MHz - 6425-7125 MHz
Bahrain	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Brazil	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
CEPT	Considering	5925-6425 MHz (*only considering 5945-6425)
Canada	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Chile	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Colombia	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Costa Rica	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Dominican Republic	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Egypt	Considering	5925-6425 MHz
European Union	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz (*only adopting 5945-6425)
Guatemala	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Honduras	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Hong Kong	Adopted - Considering	5925-6425 MHz - 5925-7125 MHz
Iceland	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz (*only adopting 5945-6425)
Japan	Considering	5925-6425 MHz - 5925-7125 MHz
Jordan	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Kenya	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Liechtenstein	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz (*only adopting 5945-6425)
Malasya	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Mauritius	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Mexico	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Morocco	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
New Zeland	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Norway	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Oman	Considering	5925-6425 MHz
Peru	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Qatar	Considering	5925-6425 MHz - 5925-7125 MHz
Saudi Arabia	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Russian Federation	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
South Africa	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
South Korea	Adopted	5925-7125 MHz
Switzerland	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
Tunisia	Considering	5925-6425 MHz
Turkey	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
United Arab Emirates	Adopted	5925-6425 MHz
United Kingdom	Considering	5925-6425 MHz - 6425-7125 MHz
United States	Adopted	6425-7125 MHz

These data are updated at 04/19/2023

The tripled spectrum allows a fast rollout of new APs and network devices and enables more non-overlapping Wi-Fi channels.

This band frequency includes the orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) feature from cellular technologies, which takes advantage of servicing multiple users on sub-channels transmitted simultaneously. 6GHz supports the native orthogonal frequency division.
OFDMA allows the transmission of significant quantities of data over a single noisy channel. This technique works by splitting a single signal into multiple smaller transmitted signals. OFDMA is perfect for medium-far transmissions, while MU MIMO is more indicated for short-range.

6 GHz spectrum access approaches

Dynamic random spectrum access and contentionbased protocols require access to multiple channels to maintain acceptable performance.

6 GHz spectrum access approaches for Europe

6 GHz spectrum access approaches for other countries

6 GHz spectrum access approaches for worldwide countires (except Europe)

What are the benefits of the 6GHz band?

> 1 Gbps Speeds – More Spectrum
< Low levels of latency – Fully-Scheduled Traffic
> High Capacity on Cutting edge-devices
> More precise positioning
> More than 700 access points of the market supports 6GHz

Features introduced by the 6GHz band

6GHz introduces new ‘in-band’ features for:
– airtime efficiency;
– faster passive/active AP discovery.

Airtime efficiency

Beacon Changes

This feature removes information elements for older generations: add some parameters to Wi-Fi 6 operations and configuration information elements.

Multi-BSSID Beacon

This feature avoids sending repetitive information elements in separate beacons or probe responses. It allows for improved airtime efficiency.

New Rules for Probing

The 6GHz frequency band doesn’t allow probes in nor-PSC channels unless a beacon is received.
It allows probes in PSC channels.

Faster passive/active AP discovery

6GHz Passive AP discovery

Fast Initial Link Setup (FILS) AP discovery

This passive feature announces each device every 20 msec (TUs – 20-time units). FILS frame includes multiple fields and subfields populated with primary channel operating class identification, SSID, BSSID, and critical channel information. All this information is necessary for a client device to decide whether the AP is suitable for connection.

Unsolicited probe response frames AP discovery

This passive feature announces each device every 20 msec (TUs – 20-time units). It can contain the same information elements as a ‘normal’ probe response, but they are transmitted to the broadcast address. Thanks to this no-frame exchange transmission by the AP, the contention loss to get this information to a client device is low. All this information is necessary for a client device to decide whether the AP is suitable for connection.

6GHz Active AP discovery

Preferred Scanning Channels (PSC)

Preferred Scanning Channels (PSCs) are a group of 1 in 4 20 MHz channels designated for beacons and discovery that have priority within the 6 GHz Wi-Fi band.
Instead of scanning the entire 6 GHz spectrum for an optimal channel, devices that support 6GHz can scan PSCs for efficient connectivity. Clients can only send probes requests on every fourth 20 MHz channel.
The complete list of all the 6 GHz PSC channels is 5, 21, 37, 53, 69, 85, 101, 117, 133, 149, 165, 181, 197, 213, 229.

What is the difference between 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz?

The main difference between 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz wireless frequencies are the range (coverage) and bandwidth (speed) that the bands provide.

5GHz and 6GHz are faster than 2.4 GHz, but they have more difficulties penetrating solid surfaces, such as walls and floors. In 2022, the number of devices on the market that operate on 2.4GHz is much higher than the 5GHz and 6GHz ones. These bands tend to have less overcrowding interference from other devices and can guarantee a better data transmission level.

Band	20MHz Channels	40MHz Channels	80MHz Channels	160MHz Channels
2.4GHz	11	2	N/A	N/A
5GHz	37	18	9	4
6GHz	59	29	14	7

Theoretical number of available channels on each band

Channel Width	Valid Channel Numbers	Number of PSC Channels	PSC Channel Numbers
20 MHz	1, 5, 9, 12, 17, 21, 25, 29, 33, 37, 41, 45, 49, 53, 57, 61, 65, 69, 73, 77, 81, 85, 89, 93, 97, 101, 105, 109, 113, 117, 121, 125, 129, 133, 137, 141, 145, 149, 153, 157, 161, 165, 169, 173, 177, 181, 185, 189, 193, 197, 201, 205, 209, 213, 217. 221, 225, 229, 233	15	5, 21, 37, 53, 69, 85, 101, 117, 133, 149, 165, 181, 197, 213, 229
40MHz	1-5, 9-13 17-21, 25-29, 33-37, 41-45, 49-53, 57-61, 65-69, 73-77, 81-85, 99-93, 97-101, 105-109, 113-117, 121-125, 129-133, 137-141, 145-149, 153-157, 161-165, 169-173, 177-181, 185-189, 193-197,201 205, 209 213, 217-221, 225-229	15	5, 21, 37, 53, 69, 85, 101, 117, 133, 145, 165, 181, 197, 213, 229
80GHz	1, 13, 17, 29, 33, 45, 49, 61, 65, 77, 81, 93, 97, 109, 113, 125, 129, 141, 145, 157, 161, 173, 177, 189, 193, 205, 209, 221	14	5, 21, 37, 53, 69, 85, 101, 117, 133, 145, 165, 181, 197, 213
160GHz	1-29, 33-61, 65-93, 97-125, 129-157, 161-189, 193-221	7	5/21, 37/53, 69/85, 101/117, 133/149, 165/181, 197/213

Valid channels number and PSC Channels in 6GHz radio

Is it better to connect to 2.4 GHz, 5GHz or 6GHz?

The best frequency among these depends on inherent hardware features and the real-time radio-frequency environment.

Tanaza cloud management dashboard has specific features with which network engineers can easily manage hundreds or thousands of AP frequencies. They can switch from 2.4GHz to 5 GHz (and soon also to 6GHz thanks to the release of new Tanaza Powered Devices and Tanaza Compatible Devices)

For each AP, MSPs, ISPs, and SPs can select the radio mode, the channel and channel width, and the TX power.

To obtain the maximum signal spread and reduce the propagation loss, the technical conformation of each frequency suggests using the 2.4GHz band for 2.4 GHz radio-supported devices and IoT devices. Older 5Ghz may fall into a ‘legacy’ category and be moved to this band to avoid dragging down the performance of preferred clients in the 5 GHz band.

5 GHz becomes the band for mainstream high-performance devices that are not 6 GHz capable, allowing non-preferred devices to be relegated to 2.4 GHz as above.

The 6 GHz band can be used for the latest, highest-performance devices, almost by definition in the first few years of rollout. It benefits not only from the highest rates available but also from the lack of legacy equipment and lower noise levels in the band.

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Tips to execute an accurate WiFi channel selection

5GHz vs 2.4GHz – What is the best WiFi frequency for business?

How to optimize WiFi network infrastructure

Tanaza is Wi-Fi Now Partner

by Marco Papavero | Nov 16, 2022 | Network Monitoring, Network Troubleshooting, Networking, Partnerships, TanazaOS, Wi-Fi Diagnostic Tools

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Tanaza is Wi-Fi Now Partner

Try now the
Tanaza WiFi management platform

✔︎ No credit card required ✔︎ Easy setup

✔︎ Free up to 3 APs

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about Tanaza achievement.

On the occasion of the new interoperability among Tanaza and Fing solutions, Claus Hetting, CEO & Chairman @ Wi-Fi NOW has evaluated and announced that Tanaza is a brand new Wi-Fi NOW partner.
Our Wi-Fi cloud management solution is listed among the worldwide leaders in the industry.

Who are the other Wi-Fi NOW partners?

Being part of this list is a great honor and allows Tanaza to create new significant partnerships with Tier 1 networking companies.
Only the most relevant and great Wi-Fi solutions and services can join this list. The most relevant brand includes historical Tanaza partners, including Linksys and Edgecore.

How Claus Hetting of Wi-Fi Now describes Tanaza?

Tanaza delivers an enterprise, cloud-managed Wi-Fi platform that is powerful, intuitive, and flexible. Service providers choose this platform for stability, features, and hardware flexibility. Networking vendors partner with Tanaza to deliver compelling ‘plug & play’ cloud management solutions. Software partners leverage the company’s APIs to integrate their applications across all supported models. The Tanaza eco-system creates synergies that make the management of networks simple, cost-effective, and scalable.

Read the article by Claus Hetting about how Tanaza’s hardware-agnostic Cloud-based Wi-Fi management adds Fing™ for device recognition.

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Experience the power of managing WiFi access points from the cloud with Tanaza.

✔︎ No credit card required ✔︎ Free up to 3 APs

Zero Touch Provisioning – A scientific method to reduce unnecessary network activities and Scope3 emissions

by Marco Papavero | Sep 22, 2022 | Cloud Management, Network Monitoring, Network Troubleshooting, Networking, TanazaOS, What's new, Wireless Hardware

Zero Touch Provisioning – A scientific method to reduce unnecessary network activities and Scope3 emissions

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WiFi Management Platform

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about Zero Touch Provisioning.

The Zero-touch provisioning is the process that can reduce time-consuming networking activities such as operating systems updating, patches or bug fixes, and features implementation, setting up WiFi access points automatically, and following agile principles.

Zero-touch provisioning could have economic and enviromental impacts when MSPs, ISPs, and SPs have to deploy a consistent number of WiFi devices.
Typically, the AP installation procedure is one of the highest cost factors in the business plan of every company.
Adding hundreds or thousands of WiFi access points through repetitious manual commands requires a lot of effort and time that becomes a lot of money in large-scale environments.
Not to mention wrong configurations, errors, and other network problems that can exceed the forecasted budget.

Zero-touch provisioning can reduce time-consuming activities scientifically

Zero-touch provisioning method is based on a solid scientific approach. In 2021, Ivan Grgurević (Associate Professor at Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at University of Zagabria) and Ivan Simunić (Solutions Architect at Ericsson and Associate Professor at Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences at University of Zagabria) have conducted a definitive study about the automation of network device configuration using Zero-Touch Provisioning.

The conference paper has shown proven significant savings in the installation time: until over 95% (depending on the AP)

Installation time and provisioning costs represent an important cost in the CAPEX/OPEX model.
This is why this scientific study has mathematically shown as the reduction of AP installation time is directly related to the reduction of deployment costs.

Tanaza has pioneered the zero-touch provisioning methodology as a cost reduction catalyst for network deployment, when in 2020, we published an article about the real cost of wireless networks and how to calculate the TCO of WiFi networks.

Zero-touch provisioning can reduce Scope 3 – Categories 6-7 emissions

When a ZTP is implemented in the network deployment process, MSPs, ISPs, and SPs can avoid sending technical employees onsite to perform the installation of the network access points.
Network administrators can remotely configure WiFi access points and send them pre-configured to the customer’s premises for installation.

This contributes to a significant reduction in indirect greenhouse emissions.

Today, the most valuable study conducted about the emissions for MSPs, ISPs and SPs shows that:

“Average CO2/km emissions vary by vehicle type and age, so the 120gr/km considered here is an optimistic scenario. If you multiply these numbers with several hundreds of field interventions typically run per day you can quickly see that there are tons of CO2 emitted per month.”
– Cisco Study

In environmental science, business travel carbon footprinting (travel by air, rail, bus, automobile or other modes of travel, employee commuting, and hotel stays) is part of the Scope 3 – Categories 6-7 emissions (indirect greenhouse emissions – CO2, CH4, N2O, HFC, or CO2e emitted per kilometer or per passenger-kilometer traveled.)

Different studies conducted by GHG Protocol and Carbon Trust has shown that these categories represent some of the largest sources of emissions for companies (in some cases as high as 85% to 95%).

Zero Touch Provisioning can reduce Scope3 emissions

Net zero (that cover Scope1, 2 and 3) can’t happen without a total revolution of supply chains.
Zero touch provisioning in network configurations can be part of that change.

Through the reduction of business travels and the programmatic obsolescence of devices to change periodically, ZTP can indirectly help MSPs, ISPs and SPs to obtain international certifications as PAS 2060 in order to demonstrate the organization’s commitment to decarbonisation, and the neutralization of remaining impact through the support of environmental projects.

How does zero-touch provisioning work?

The Tanaza zero-touch provisioning feature is based on a highly complex algorithm. We try to resume in a few lines the ZTP architecture, trusting to express what are the branches and bounds that concur to cut costs for companies.

When a WiFi device has activated the zero-touch provisioning capability, the algorithm starts:
– to search for a DHCP server on the network to obtain the IP address,
– to obtain gateway information,
– to verify the location of the DNS server.

At this point, if the location of the DNS server is not provided or unreachable, DHCP uses other DNS services.

When the device has obtained an IP address, it faces other configuration obstacles such as:
– firewalls.

The device processes the DHCP options and locates configuration files, executes scripts, and upgrades and/or downgrades software.

If both the image and configuration files are present, the image is installed and the configuration is applied.

If only the image file is present, the image is installed on the device.

If the image is the same as the image already installed on the device, ZTP continues and skips the installation step.

If the image was unable to be fetched by the device, ZTP will try to fetch the image again.

If the image has corrupted, the installation fails.

If installation fails for any reason, ZTP will restart.

If there is no image or configuration file, the ZTP process starts again.

If there is no file server information, the ZTP process starts again.
Once the configuration is committed, the ZTP process has been deemed successful and terminates.

The precedent list is only a brief sequence of the operation that occurs during the ZTP provisioning process.
In the best cases, we have counted 19 operations that network administrators can solve with further sub-tasks and manual commands.
In these steps, random events and triggers that can cause the restart of the process can suddenly happen, increasing the number of time-consuming operations.

For instance, these events are:
– Request for the configuration file, script file, or image file fails.
– The configuration file is incorrect, and the commit fails.
– No configuration files and no image files are available.
– The image file has been corrupted, and installation fails.
– No file server information is available.
– The DHCP server does not have valid ZTP parameters configured.
– When none of the DHCP client interfaces goes to a bound state.
– ZTP transaction fails after six attempts to fetch the configuration file or image file.

Tanaza’s zero-touch provisioning algorithm solves all these passages in a single automatic operation, allowing the access points configuration in a few seconds.

Advantages of Zero-touch provisioning

The main advantages of zero-touch provisioning includes:
– automated setup of network devices;
– reduced time in manual configuration;
– reduced costs from less time being spent on manual tasks;
– easier and quicker updates;
– reduction of possible errors generated by human configurations;
– less time to get network devices operational.
– growing efficiency in large-scale device deployments.

Why Tanaza?

Tanaza software upgrades existing Wi-Fi networks.
Tanaza works with the most common easy-to-procure Wi-Fi access points available in most countries, such as Ubiquiti, MikroTik, TP-Link. If a device model is not supported yet, Tanaza may support it on request for medium to large network deployments. Discover all devices compatible.
IT teams do not need to deploy any hardware controller. Tanaza is 100% cloud-based and ready to use with no need for AWS instance deployments.
Our platform provides unlimited scalability.
It’s powerful and it has an intuitive user interface.

The Tanaza team can help you to select the best hardware that runs the Tanaza Operating System out-of-the-box from our OEM partners for a plug-and-play experience. Discover the Tanaza Powered Devices.

Explore the zero touch provisioning by Tanaza

The Tanaza team can help you to select the best hardware that runs the Tanaza Operating System out-of-the-box from our OEM partners for a plug-and-play experience.

✔︎ Out-Of-The-Box Experience
✔︎ Intelbras, Comfast, Amer Networks, DCN and Yuncore with Tanaza pre-installed

Tanaza WiFi Cloud Management

Core features

Best Wireless Access Points for Enterprise Network Deployments in 2023

by Marco Papavero | Aug 10, 2022 | Device management, Partnerships, Tanaza Account Management, TanazaOS

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Best Access Points for Enterprises Network Deployments

Best Wireless Access Points for Enterprise Network Deployments in March 2023

Choosing the best access points for enterprise network deployments is fundamental. New high-level expectations about speed performance, ease of installation, cloud manageability, and software stability are just some of the new key things that IT professionals take into consideration when selecting which device to deploy.

To meet and fulfill these new market requirements, we have put together a list of the best WiFi access points for enterprise network deployments.

Best Enterprise Access Points for Indoor Deployment in 2023

Edgecore EAP102-T
Comfast CF-E375AC;
Intelbras AP360;
Intelbras AP1350;
Intelbras AP1750;
Amer Networks DataCloud1;
Amer Networks DataCloud2;
Amer Networks DataCloud3;
Amer Networks WAP1000

Best Enterprise Access Points for Outdoor Deployment in 2023

Comfast CF-WA350;
Yuncore CPE830

The Best Access Points for Enterprises Network Deployments