High Efficiency Wi-Fi- 802.11ax | Dr. Eldad Perahia | WLPC US Phoenix 2017 

Wang Linetkux except its not just me. One of the biggest gripes people have with technology is unreliable wifi. Part of being a good standard is being robust, reliable and easy to implement. If router companies are failing to make good routers, on a systemic basis, as they are, that is a failure of the standard. Or specifically of the working group for failing to address indutry issues, and providing the resources the industry needs to improve

@@24grantj24 That is what he talked about. Improved range, improved support for more users, improve response times.

WIFI is reliable when planned well. Simple home networks, usually have one central router, with terrible auto-channel selection, often going 80MHz wide occupying 4 channels which subjects you to a higher SNR requirement. If you live in an apartment complex or condo, you have lots of RF neighbors, all running 40-80 wide at full power - stepping on your channels. If you are in a larger home, then you probably just don't have enough coverage through walls with one WIFI "router" existing somewhere. So WIFI is not the problem. Implementation and RF neighbors not following best practices are more likely your issue, along with possibly poor behavior or drivers on the client side.

Grant, The environment has a huge impact on reliability. Wifi will never just magically work by just dropping in a WAP and powering it up. I see it every day. You need to know how the antennas work on the WAP(s) so you can mount and orient them optimally. You need to be aware of the materials in the house and how they might impact the signal. And, except in the simplest deployments, you should be walking the site with at least a simple wifi-analyzer to check that the WAPs you want to service specific areas are actually doing so. I've seen a lot of interesting things in high end residential deployments. One house was a literal fortress and required 25 WAPs for less than 8,000 sq feet. Some of the antique furniture seemed to have lead in the finish or something in it, as it would 100% block signal despite being made of wood. But then in my 3000 sq foot house all I needed was 2. And TBH, if I wanted to ignore one little corner I could get away with a single WAP. The environment you deploy in has a huge impact on reliability, especially when not taken into consideration during planning and deployment.

People really looked at the "WiFi reliability" in the wrong lens. If you have a 10ft cat6 cable, it's stone reliable within 10ft, but at 11ft something is going to break, no one complains about that. But, with WiFi, you are stone reliable within 10ft, you are still somewhat reliable at 20ft, it's only when you push it to 30ft all a sudden you start bitching and whinnying like Maxwell did something wrong.