What is Wi-Fi 7? Everything You Need to Know About the Next Wireless Standard

While many individuals solely just lately upgraded to Wi-Fi 6, and a few could also be contemplating a bounce to Wi-Fi 6E, their successor is already on the horizon. Wi-Fi 7 is the subsequent vital advance, and, similar to its predecessors, the new normal guarantees quicker connections, decrease latency, and the potential to gracefully handle extra connections than ever earlier than.

If you’re looking to enhance your Wi-Fi at the moment, Wi-Fi 7 is not the reply, as a result of help will probably be scarce for a while to come. But early adopters will probably be excited by the information that the first batch of Wi-Fi 7 routers is set to land in early 2023. Realistically, will probably be a very good whereas earlier than most of us ought to think about switching. If you want to improve pronto, first think about delving into how to purchase a router earlier than you try our picks of the greatest Wi-Fi routers and the greatest mesh Wi-Fi techniques.

Updated November 2022: We adjusted the timeline as Wi-Fi 7 attracts nearer and added information about TP-Link’s Wi-Fi 7 router lineup.

What is Wi-Fi 7?

The seventh era of Wi-Fi guarantees main enhancements over Wi-Fi 6 and 6E and will supply hurries up to 4 instances quicker. It additionally consists of intelligent advances to scale back latency, enhance capability, and enhance stability and effectivity.

Wi-Fi 7 is IEEE 802.11be in the outdated naming conference, the place Wi-Fi 6 was IEEE 802.11ax, and Wi-Fi 5 was IEEE 802.11ac. Like earlier requirements, Wi-Fi 7 will probably be backward suitable. But to reap the benefits of the new options and improved efficiency it guarantees, you’ll need to improve your units. That means shopping for new routers and entry factors, not to point out new smartphones, laptops, TVs, and so forth.

What Benefits Will Wi-Fi 7 Bring?

Wi-Fi 7 will probably be quicker, help extra connections, and be extra adaptive to keep dependable low latency efficiency.

These advantages will assist ship high-quality video and higher cloud gaming, and they’ll serve AR and VR purposes that require excessive throughput and low latency. Wi-Fi 7 additionally tackles congestion and interference, bringing tangible advantages to areas with densely packed units or neighboring networks that overlap. The latter is most vital for the enterprise and bigger venues.

How Does Wi-Fi 7 Compare to Wi-Fi 6E?

You might, understandably, surprise what distinguishes Wi-Fi 7 from Wi-Fi 6E, which broadly guarantees the similar benefits over earlier requirements by opening up the 6-GHz band. Especially since Wi-Fi 7 will use the similar three 2.4-GHz, 5 -GHz, and 6-GHz bands. Here are some notable upgrades.

Wider Channels

Each band is damaged into channels. The 2.4-GHz band includes 11 channels of 20 megahertz (MHz) every. The 5-GHz band has 45 channels, however as a substitute of being restricted to a width of 20 MHz, they’ll mix to create 40-MHz or 80-MHz channels. The 6-GHz band helps 60 channels, and with Wi-Fi 6E they are often as extensive as 160 MHz. Wi-Fi 7 helps channels which can be up to 320 MHz extensive. The wider the channel, the extra knowledge it could possibly transmit.

A easy analogy is to think about how a lot visitors a single-lane highway can deal with in contrast to a three-lane freeway or a six-lane superhighway.

Higher QAM

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) is a technique to transmit and obtain knowledge in radio-frequency waves. The greater it is, the extra data you may pack in. Wi-Fi 7 helps 4K-QAM, Wi-Fi 6 supported 1024-QAM, and Wi-Fi 5 was restricted to 256-QAM.

The potential advantages are difficult by sign power, background noise, and interference. Consequently, as QAM goes up, the vary drops, and also you want a stronger sign. So, the bounce to 1024-QAM in Wi-Fi 6 supplied round a 25 % knowledge price enhance over Wi-Fi 5. The leap to 4K-QAM in Wi-Fi 7 interprets to a 20 % enhance in peak efficiency.

Multi-Link Operation

Perhaps the most enjoyable advance in Wi-Fi 7 is Multi-Link Operation (MLO). Every earlier Wi-Fi normal establishes a connection between two units on a single band. Even a tri-band Wi-Fi 6E router connects two units on a single band on a hard and fast channel (the router decides whether or not to join on the 2.4-GHz, 5-GHz, or 6-GHz band).

MLO can mix a number of frequencies throughout bands right into a single connection. A Wi-Fi 7 router can join to a Wi-Fi 7 gadget throughout two or extra channels in several bands concurrently. MLO doubtlessly permits wider channels able to transmitting extra knowledge—going again to our freeway analogy, you may ship visitors on the freeway and the superhighway directly.

Speed isn’t all the time the precedence, however MLO additionally permits for extra environment friendly efficiency. A Wi-Fi 7 router can take congestion and different interference under consideration and transmit on the greatest channel to bypass it, switching to keep a secure connection and low latency. MLO can also assist mitigate the comparatively brief vary of the 6-GHz band.