Re: "Safe" cell phone WiFi capabilities?

On 2024-05-20, Don Y wrote:

On 5/20/2024 4:02 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:

On 2024-05-17, Don Y wrote:

On 5/17/2024 5:55 AM, Dan Purgert wrote:

On 2024-05-17, Don Y wrote:

For "nominal" cell phones (i.e., taking into consideration
that not ever subscriber buys The Latest and Greatest),
what's the "base" WiFi capability one would feel comfortable
assuming?  ac?  ax?

>
Assuming you're limiting the question to the set of cellphones that
actually implement wifi, 802.11b ... but what are you *REALLY* trying to
ask for?

>
There are several different "generations" of WiFi, each with
different effective (data) bandwidths.
>
The most commonly referenced include:  802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g,
802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11ax and, most recently, 802.11be.  The

 
It's almost like that list is ... all of the options.
 

[Note that n is a ~2008 era technology while ac is ~2015
and ax is ~2020.  Does this suggest that any phone made
"within the last 5 years" -- an interval Martin suggests
should cover "most" phones now in use -- should be "ax"?]

 
No. /FLAGSHIP/ models certainly have a high chance of supporting
802.11ax, but that doesn't mean "any" phone.
 
Again, what are you *REALLY* trying to ascertain here?

>
I am trying to figure out what the "basic" WiFi capabilities
of "the vast majority" of cell phones currently in use are
likely to be.

802.11a/b/g/n.  Flagship models (or former flagships) will have 802.11ac
or ax; as appropriate for their release date.

The most basic support is still 802.11b; and that'll probably be kind of
"forever" (at least until 2.4 GHz is completely abandoned), same as how
10mbit is still the most basic ethernet-over-twisted-pair support.

>
But, in practice, most phones support something more capable
than 802.11b -- just like most enets support something more
capable than 10BaseT/2.

It's almost like "the base" isn't what you want then.

>
Designing for the lowest POSSIBLE vs. LIKELY means unnecessarily
limiting the capabilities that you can exploit.

Which is why you toss in an 802.11ax AP (or 802.11ac, if the ax units
are prohibitively expensive for your house/office/whatever), and leave
it up to the client device to negotiate for the best common option.

It's not like an 802.11ax AP doesn't support a/b/g/n/ac ...

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