In early Intel AX200 drivers (pre-2020), OFDMA uplink was essentially disabled in many OS builds because the driver’s buffer reporting to the access point was too slow, causing the AP to fall back to legacy EDCA. Yes—your "Wi-Fi 6" connection was actually running in 802.11ac mode because of a driver decision .
Here’s where it gets wild. The driver for an 802.11ax adapter on 2.4 GHz must handle LTE-LAA coexistence filters, detect radar on DFS channels, and manage 1024-QAM demodulation—all while preventing the Wi-Fi 6 signal from stomping on Zigbee or Thread devices in the same band. Some Realtek ax drivers actually downgrade to 256-QAM if interference is detected, not because the hardware can’t handle it, but because the driver’s FFT error margins become unstable. 802.11ax wlan adapter driver
In other words: The air is full of potential. The driver just has to stop spilling it. In early Intel AX200 drivers (pre-2020), OFDMA uplink