While Wi-Fi 6 (no "e," aka 802.11ax) is a bunch of technical improvements mostly aimed at more efficient usage of existing spectrum, Wi-Fi 6E is all about expanding Wi-Fi to a newly freed-up chunk of spectrum.

Previously, Wi-Fi only worked on the 2.4Ghz and 5GHz spectrum, but Wi-Fi 6E uses the 6GHz spectrum.

This was announced all the way back in September as the "World's first Wi-Fi 6E gaming router," but it finally got a release window: January 2021!

A 2.5gig WAN port sounds like something that would be increasingly useful in the future, but I don't think there are any consumer-grade modems that could take advantage of that yet. Comcast and Google both have a 2Gbps fiber service, but both services come with their own networking gear and according to Google's sign-up page, "customers will not be able to use their own router." Plan for the future, I guess.

Most of the specs on these routers just reiterate the standard Wi-Fi 6/6E features, but Asus does list a 1.8GHz 64-bit Quad-core CPU with 1GB RAM, which sounds like it can handle a lot of traffic without slowing down.

Stop me if this sounds familiar: a 1.8GHz quad-core processor and a gig of memory, 4x4 MU-MIMO for 5GHz and 6GHz, two USB 3.0 ports, gigabit WAN, 4 gigabit LAN, and a 2.5gig port for WAN or LAN.

Just like the Asus router, there are eight antennas, but instead of the spider design, four antennas live in each wingtip.

The WAN port is labeled "5Gbps Internet," so it sounds like Linksys is really ready for modems with multi-gigabit ports, if they are ever produced.

Linksys' website is also teasing what looks like a non-mesh Wi-Fi 6E router, but we don't even have a name for it yet.

It's a shame TP-Link only provided a single, overhead image, because the back of this thing sounds very busy: a USB-C port, a USB-A port, four gigabit Ethernet ports, a 2.5 Gbps WAN/LAN port, a 10Gbps WAN/LAN port, and, for when you want to get really serious, a 10Gbps SFP+ WAN/LAN port, for a fiber-optic connection.

Finally from TP-Link is the Archer AX96, and while, again, there is no price or release date, this sounds like it will be a cheaper Wi-Fi 6E router.

The main hint is the speed rating for the 6GHz Wi-Fi 6E, which only hits "2402 Mbps," which indicates that this router only does 2x2 MIMO on the 6GHz spectrum, or half the speed of the Asus and Netgear routers.

5GHz still looks like 4x4 MIMO, so this router would allow for a baby step into 6GHz.