Whereas many individuals solely just lately upgraded to Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi 6E, the successor to these requirements has already arrived. Wi-Fi 7 is the subsequent important advance, and similar to its predecessors, it guarantees quicker connections, decrease latency, and the power to gracefully handle extra connections.
In case you are trying to improve your Wi-Fi right now, Wi-Fi 7 just isn’t the reply, as a result of help will probably be scarce. However early adopters will probably be excited by the information that the Wi-Fi Alliance has unveiled the “Wi-Fi 7 Licensed” program. Realistically, it is going to be a superb whereas earlier than most of us ought to think about switching. If you might want to improve pronto, first think about delving into how to buy a router earlier than you take a look at our picks of the best Wi-Fi routers and the best mesh Wi-Fi systems.
Up to date January 2024: We added information of the Wi-Fi 7 Licensed program and up to date particulars of the specs and our experiences with early Wi-Fi 7 mesh programs and routers.
What’s Wi-Fi 7?
The seventh technology of Wi-Fi guarantees main enhancements over Wi-Fi 6 and 6E and will supply speeds as much as 4 occasions quicker. It additionally contains intelligent advances to scale back latency, enhance capability, and enhance stability and effectivity.
Wi-Fi 7 is IEEE 802.11be within the outdated naming conference, the place Wi-Fi 6 was IEEE 802.11ax, and Wi-Fi 5 was IEEE 802.11ac.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. However to reap the benefits of the brand new options and improved efficiency it guarantees, you’ll need to improve your gadgets. Which means shopping for new routers and entry factors, to not point out new smartphones, laptops, TVs, and so forth.
What Advantages Does Wi-Fi 7 Convey?
Wi-Fi 7 is quicker, helps extra connections, and is extra adaptive to take care of dependable low-latency efficiency.
These advantages assist ship high-quality video and higher cloud gaming, they usually 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 gadgets or neighboring networks that overlap. The latter is most important for enterprise and bigger venues.
How Does Wi-Fi 7 Examine to Wi-Fi 6E?
Chances are you’ll, understandably, surprise what distinguishes Wi-Fi 7 from Wi-Fi 6E, which broadly guarantees the identical benefits over earlier requirements by opening up the 6-GHz band. Particularly since Wi-Fi 7 will use the identical three 2.4-GHz, 5-GHz, and 6-GHz bands. Listed below are some notable upgrades:
Wider Channels
Every band is damaged into channels. The two.4-GHz band contains 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 broad as 160 MHz. Wi-Fi 7 helps channels which might be as much as 320 MHz broad. The broader the channel, the extra knowledge it might transmit.
A easy analogy is to think about how a lot site visitors a single-lane highway can deal with in comparison with a three-lane freeway or a six-lane superhighway.
Multi-Hyperlink Operation
Maybe probably the most thrilling advance in Wi-Fi 7 is Multi-Hyperlink Operation (MLO). Each earlier Wi-Fi normal establishes a connection between two gadgets on a single band. Even a tri-band Wi-Fi 6E router connects two gadgets on a single band on a hard and fast channel (the router decides whether or not to attach on the two.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 hook up with a Wi-Fi 7 system throughout two or extra channels in several bands concurrently. MLO doubtlessly allows wider channels able to transmitting extra knowledge—going again to our freeway analogy, you may ship site visitors on the freeway and the superhighway directly.
Pace 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 most effective channel to bypass it, switching to take care of a steady connection and low latency. MLO may also assist mitigate the comparatively brief vary of the 6-GHz band, guaranteeing you get seamless connectivity out of your mesh system as you progress across the dwelling.
Increased QAM
Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) is a technique to transmit and obtain knowledge in radio-frequency waves. The upper it’s, the extra data you may pack in. Wi-Fi 7 helps 4K-QAM, whereas Wi-Fi 6 supported 1,024-QAM, and Wi-Fi 5 was restricted to 256-QAM.
The potential advantages are sophisticated by sign power, background noise, and interference. Consequently, as QAM goes up, the vary drops, and also you want a stronger sign. So, the soar to 1,024-QAM in Wi-Fi 6 supplied round a 25 p.c knowledge charge enhance over Wi-Fi 5. The leap to 4K-QAM in Wi-Fi 7 interprets to a 20 p.c enhance in peak efficiency.
