WiFi 7 is a leap forward from WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E. With faster speeds, lower latency, and significantly increased capacity, WiFi 7 is a major evolution in wireless technology. It has much in common with WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E, but with several key improvements to meet the growing data requirements of home and business users.
With standalone WiFi 7 routers and WiFi 7 mesh routers on the market, you might be considering upgrading. Let’s take a look at what’s changed, what’s staying the same, and what you need to consider when upgrading to WiFi 7.
What’s new in the WiFi 7 standard?
The highlight feature of WiFi 7 is its significantly faster performance compared to WiFi 6. Our flagship WiFi 7 mesh router delivers 2.4x faster throughput than WiFi 6. With a maximum aggregate throughput of 46Gbps, it is 4.8x faster than WiFi 6 and 2.4x faster with the same WiFi configuration.
As Internet Service Providers (ISPs) continue to deliver faster internet connections to homes and businesses, WiFi 7 ensures that local networks have enough capacity to support increased download speeds.
These increased speeds are possible thanks to two major upgrades: doubling channel width from 160Hz to 320Hz and increasing data density, increasing the amount of data that can be encoded into wireless signals.
EMEA Sales Director at NETGEAR.
Wider channel width
Each WiFi band operates at a smaller band of 20/40/80/160 MHz to connect to individual devices. WiFi 7 doubles the bandwidth to 320 MHz. Effectively, this doubles the WiFi speeds to individual devices and provides significantly more additional bandwidth to support more devices.
Increased data density
WiFi 7 not only increases speed and bandwidth, but also the amount of data that can be encoded into a radio signal, measured in a standard called Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). While WiFi 6 had a QAM limit of 1024, WiFi 7 offers an astounding 4096 (or 4K, the standard is also known as 4K QAM), raising peak rates and improving throughput. Each transmitted symbol can carry 12 bits instead of 10, resulting in a 20% increase in theoretical transmission speeds.
There has been a 2.4x increase in WiFi speeds between WiFi 6 and WiFi 7, due to both wider channel bandwidth (320MHz) and increased data density (4K QAM).
Multi-Link Operation (MLO)
The WiFi 6 standard (and previous generations) can support the 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi bands. One of the main additions of WiFi 6E is the addition of the 6GHz band. This provides a new way to connect without congesting the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, which is a big benefit in urban areas where there are many WiFi networks within range. However, a staple of WiFi technology to date has been the requirement that clients can only connect using one of these bands.
With WiFi 7, that changes as the router will now be able to connect to client devices over two different bands.
Imagine two highways leading to a destination. MLOs give those highways the flexibility to distribute traffic between both routes or to quickly move traffic to one highway if the other highway becomes congested.
Mesh systems especially benefit from MLO because both the router and satellites can transmit simultaneously on two different bands, resulting in the best performance.
This feature is also extremely useful for switching from one band to another on your mobile device without losing connection. If you walk from the center of your house to the garden while on a Zoom call, WiFi 7 will allow your device to switch from 6GHz to 5GHz to 2.4GHz without the call dropping or buffering.
Flexible channel usage
One of the key limitations of WiFi is that any kind of interference affects the entire channel. However, with “puncturing”, if one part of the channel is affected by interference, we can block only that part and continue to use the rest of the channel for data transmission. This makes WiFi more resistant to interference and ensures that critical flows and latency are not affected. Going back to the highway example, with WiFi 6, a hole in a lane would prevent you from using that lane, but with WiFi 7, you could block the hole and drive around it, allowing you to use the rest of the lane.
What hasn’t changed?
The incredible specs of WiFi 7 often lead people to overlook how it builds on the capabilities and infrastructure already present in WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E. As mentioned above, both WiFi 6E and WiFi 7 offer the same three bands, including the super-fast 6GHz band. Both have extremely wide bandwidths. Technology providers are catching up with WiFi 6E and WiFi 7, and new devices are now being introduced that unlock the full potential of both standards.
The majority of mobile devices in use today still rely on WiFi 6 or earlier versions. Apple’s latest iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro, and MacBook Pro laptops currently support WiFi 6E, and the technology is also available in many of the latest Windows laptops and Android smartphones.
WiFi 7 is the future and we expect the standard to be quickly adopted by new laptops and mobile phones. We have already seen the launch of gaming laptops, desktop PC motherboards and mobile phones with WiFi 7, and this trend is set to continue.
So, investing in a WiFi 7-enabled mesh or router now will ensure robust wireless performance for the foreseeable future.
Demanding users who want to future-proof their home networks for years to come should consider adopting WiFi 7 devices when they become available. Serious gamers will appreciate the standard’s low latency and quick responsiveness. Frequent VR/AR players will benefit from WiFi 7’s incredible speed and low latency. And those who always want the latest and greatest will be happy to know that their network is ready to get the most out of their future purchases for a long time to come.
Business WiFi 7
While home users tend to be early adopters of the latest technology, faster wireless performance and future-proofing are important for small and large business environments as well.
WiFi 7 adds capacity and bandwidth to support more wireless devices across the enterprise, improving performance and productivity.
However, network reliability, security, and ease of management/deployment are also important considerations for enterprises. IT managers are understandably wary of introducing risk to their work environments. Therefore, the final ratification and certification of the WiFi 7 standard in January 2024 will be critical to ensure a consistent feature set across all devices.
IP cameras, access points, IoT devices, business routers, and more, along with employee client laptops and phones, can all benefit from the enhanced performance offered by WiFi 7. WiFi 7 improves the performance of industrial wireless technology, and the increased throughput allows new applications to be deployed, improving efficiency across the business.
We have compiled a list of the best Wi-Fi extenders.
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