Wi-Fi 7 is coming, and it goes much beyond just theoretical speed upgrades

Wi-Fi 6E and whatever older Wi-Fi standard your router is still clinging on to, aren’t exactly going away anytime soon. But the process for replacing Wi-Fi 6E, the current latest standard with Wi-Fi 7, is already making moving ahead at rapid pace. Chances are, you’ll likely upgrade soon. The next generation Wi-Fi 7 standard is yet to be formally announced, and the latest paper by the IEEE, or Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, says the standard will be approved sometime in the year 2024. But that hasn’t stopped companies from developing components, based on the drafts, to get ahead of the queue. The previous standards, Wi-Fi 6 and the step up, the Wi-Fi 6E, were released in 2019 and 2021 respectively. It is expected that the standard will be referred to as 802.11be, succeeding 802.11ax. The maximum transmission rates, which simply means highest speeds you can expect on wireless connectivity, tops out at 10Gbps on the latest Wi-Fi 6E standard. The Wi-Fi 7 upgrade is expected to push this ceiling to 30Gbps, though certain chips and devices may support lower levels. Also Read: Forgot your Wifi password? Here’s how to find it on Android phones The first phones, tablets and laptops prepared for compatibility with Wi-Fi 7, are expected for launch in the second half of 2024. Work is proceeding at a fairly brisk pace. Intel and Broadcom, the latter a popular networking equipment company, have developed what is the first cross-vendor Wi-Fi 7 efforts. The demonstration, earlier this month, topped out at 5Gbps speeds, or 5 gigabits per second. “We are proud to highlight how next-generation Wi-Fi 7 can make new mobile PC experiences possible. Industry collaboration is essential to ensure we deliver on the promises of this new wireless technology,” said Carlos Cordeiro, Intel Fellow and Wireless CTO, Client Computing Group, Intel. The two tech companies believe Wi-Fi 7 is the platform for at least the next 10years of wireless connectivity. This will be fast enough for up to 23Gbps speeds, as much as 63 times the transmit power (which has a direct correlation to the range from every router, for instance) and low latency. “The reliable, low latency communication provided by Wi-Fi 7 is a key element of Broadcom’s vision for connecting everything as the Internet evolves to its next iteration replete with immersive experiences,” says Vijay Nagarajan, vice president, Wireless Connectivity Division, Broadcom. The Wi-Fi Alliance, which also certifies security protocols, inter-operability and products that comply with standards, says the jump will be quite big in terms of performance. “Wi-Fi 7 focuses on physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) improvements capable of supporting a maximum throughput of at least 30Gbps to increase performance, enable Wi-Fi innovations, and expand use cases,” says the alliance. Secondly, while you would have already noticed that your current router offers two frequency bands (that’s 2.4GHz and 5GHz; the latter is not to be confused with 5G mobile networks), Wi-Fi 7 routers will also offer a 6GHz band, which should unlock the scope of better bandwidth delivery for devices that support it, with lesser interference. What’ll also help in this regard is the widening of the single channel bandwidth – it’ll go up from 160MHz to 320MHz now. It may be a single band, or combination of two bands to achieve the bandwidth. “High Band Simultaneous Multi-Link offers wider effective channels by aggregating two available channels. A 320 MHz effective channel can be created by combining two 160 MHz channels in the high bands,” says Andy Davidson, Senior Director for Technology Planning, Qualcomm Atheros Inc. The company has already shown off what’s effectively the world’s first Wi-Fi 7 chip, called the FastConnect 7800, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) earlier this month. This supports the HBS standard, and Qualcomm also insists the power consumption is less by as much as 50%. An extra band and wider channels would mean less chance of devices tripping over each other, as a multitude of them connect simultaneously. Your smartphone, PCs and laptops, smart watches, TVs, smart home devices, gaming consoles, smart speakers, and even the home gym equipment. Something that works in parallel is the Alternating Multi-Link feature. You will no longer need to select a device to be on 2.4GHz or 5GHz as the router or the gadgets pick now – the router will simply pick the channel that has the least congestion and send the data down that path. “Wi-Fi 7’s advances in channel width, QAM, and new features such as multi-link operation (MLO) will make Wi-Fi 7 very attractive for devices including flagship smartphones, PCs, consumer devices and vertical industries like retail and industrial,” says Mario Morales, group vice president, Semiconductors at IDC, in a statement. In January, chipmaker MediaTek gave us the first glimpse of the Filogic Wi-Fi 7 technology, which they say achieves the maximum speeds as defined by the IEEE 802.11be, as well as support for the multi-link operation (MLO) technology which aggregates more than one channel on different bands in case there is heavy network usage at the time. The company estimates the first networking products with Wi-Fi 7 will roll out sometime next year. The paper from IEEE talks about not just the expected speed and bandwidth upgrades, but these larger changes that may provide the foundation for the next line of standards. Linking of different bands, time sensitive networking and better bandwidth for mesh networks are some of those examples. All this comes with a warning – it is still work in progress. “Apart from that, by now, it is unclear whether the 320 MHz channels will provide gains in dense deployments,” says the paper. It is still some distance away, but we are getting closer to a more powerful Wi-Fi standard. It may take some time before you eventually upgrade to a router that’s Wi-Fi 7 certified, and it may be a longer time still before the loop is complete with your next gadget purchases supporting Wi-Fi 7.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Vishal Mathur is Technology Editor for Hindustan Times. When not making sense of technology, he often searches for an elusive analog space in a digital world.
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