News Wi-Fi Alliance adopts friendlier 'generational' naming convention

To be honest, less technical users probably don't care because they're still using their ISP-provided router, and don't really understand the difference between broadband and wifi - largely down to ISP adverts concentrating more on wifi than on actual broadband speeds. Your average home user probably doesn't buy wifi kit, so they'll probably never notice the difference in naming.

That's not to say that the change isn't welcome - naming standards based on apparently random letters (although, yes, I am aware that the full list of 802.11 standards does go through most of the alphabet in between the major standard releases) are never very helpful - although it doesn't really fix questions around inter-operability between standards.

Of course, the real question is whether or not LiFi (802.11bb, I think?) will fit into this new naming scheme

 

A. This is dumb. I'm gonna double down on using IEEE names for wireless networking just out of SPITE.

B. "while 802.11a was technically better it proved unpopular in the consumer market" 802.11a had range issues, since the higher-frequency 5 GHz radio attenuated faster and was more readily blocked by walls.
Fast-forward a few years, and once even the friggin' toaster has a 2.4 GHz radio for 802.11g or bluetooth, suddenly 5 GHz has BETTER range in a lot of places just because there's less noise.

 

I'm utterly reliant upon 5GHz at our new home. The base we're on is large, yet the houses are quite tightly packed together so the 2.4GHz range is absolutely swamped. The 5GHz isn't much better as we have 3x radars on site, one of which obliterates the upper channels of the 5GHz range.

I managed to find a perfect 5gig channel until the new neighbours moved in and had SkyQ fitted, which their router/SSID uses 3x simultaneous channels in the 2.4gig range and an incredibly loud 80MHz bandwidth 5gig channel, rendering my VM superhub useless as all but a modem.

Got fed up. Bought Ubiquiti. Winning again.

 

Well the naming is bizarre I found trying to sort out other aspects such as dual and tri-band more confusing in determining what I need/want. But then most of my home network is hardwired.

 

wonder how long it is before the average numpty starts conflating the number with signal strength/quality...

 

That is fair.
I live in a house from the 50s, and even 2.4 GHz can't make it far enough through our walls. 5 GHz has no hope, so I use it in the rooms I can, 2.4 in the rooms 5 doesn't work in, and powerline networking in the front where 802.11 is just useless.