[James Settle]

As we move further into 2025 Wi-Fi standards are progressing quicker. Wi-Fi was originally introduced in 1999 as 802.11b which would be considered Wi-Fi 1 now with a 2.4GHz bandwidth and 11Mbps or Megabits per second. Since that time we have been introduced to 802.11 a, g, n, b, ac, ax, axe, and now be in Wi-Fi 7. They are basically the standards or rules set forth to govern wireless communication over networks put together by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers or IEEE. They continue to revise these standards since, like most electronics, advancements in speed, range, device capacity, frequency bands, and security continue to evolve. I would say most people are commonly operating on Wi-Fi 5 standards right now, but Wi-Fi 6, 6E, and Wi-Fi 7 are rapidly pushing in to the market and as people upgrade, they will eventually take over. As for encryption standards, wireless networks began with WEP, which quickly identified as highly vulnerable to cracking the encryption keys, from there WPA, then WPA2, which has been the standard for some time, but is now giving way to WPA3.