Over the past few decades, Wi-Fi has become the wireless networking technology of choice in small networking spaces around the world. Whether you want a stable and fast wireless network in your home, office, coffee shop, or educational institution, Wi-Fi is the default and best option. Previous generations of Wi-Fi still had some serious limitations compared to wired connections, but the technology has continued to evolve over time. The latest generations of Wi-Fi have advanced by leaps and bounds, expanding the level of functionality, reliability, security and speed of the connectivity standard.

As the next heavyweight version of Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 7 will also bring a host of practical improvements, including lower latency, faster data transfer speeds, better smart home compatibility, and the number of simultaneous connected devices improvement. So as with every previous round of upgrades, let's sort out a few related questions: What is Wi-Fi 7? What new features does it bring? When will it be listed? Do we want to upgrade.

What is Wi-Fi?

Let's start with the basic definition first. The full name of Wi-Fi is Wireless Fidelity, and the brand name for this communication standard was developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The organization is responsible for deciding what will be included in each generation of Wi-Fi technology. As a consumer-oriented brand name, Wi-Fi corresponds to the IEEE 802.11 communication standard. Every major revision of IEEE 802.11 is denoted by adding a suffix to the official name, and the average consumer just needs to know that the result of the upgrade is still called "Wi-Fi". Only Wi-Fi 7 is an exception this time, and the IEEE has added an adjective: IEEE 802.11be Extremely High Throughput (EHT, extremely high throughput).

Wi-Fi generally exists as a local area network, and mainly accesses the Internet through a fixed network, and allocates connection channels to each device. The data transmission is carried out by the access point, the most common solution is the well-known router. To access Wi-Fi and access the Internet, each connected device needs to have its own built-in Wi-Fi receiver.

Wi-Fi can provide two operating frequency bands: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Among them, 2.4 GHz is the default frequency band, which supports a wider range and a larger coverage area, but the transmission speed is lower. 5 GHz has less coverage but faster transfer speeds. Starting with Wi-Fi 6E, the 6 GHz band has also been included in the use of Wi-Fi.

The evolution of Wi-Fi

Over the years, Wi-Fi has never stopped evolving, all the way to the version we use today. Since Wi-Fi was first standardized in the 1990s, there have been several generations of Wi-Fi technical standards. The first official version of Wi-Fi was released in 1997, named IEEE 802.11-1997. This version is very basic, and has many interoperability issues. The maximum theoretical transfer speed is only 2 Mbps, and the actual performance is not even up to that.

In 1999, Wi-Fi ushered in a new revision, adopting two new standards at the same time. IEEE 802.11b is still based on the 2.4 GHz band with a maximum transfer rate of 11 Mbps; IEEE 802.11a uses the 5 GHz band with a maximum transfer rate of 54 Mbps. Modern Wi-Fi routers and devices still support both the 11b and 11a standards. The next version was 11g in 2003, which made the 2.4 GHz data transfer rate reach 54 Mbps.

The next version was IEEE 802.11n, now known as Wi-Fi 4m, a major revision introduced in 2009, also supporting 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, with transfer rates up to 600 Mbps. It was followed by 11ac, a pure 5 GHz standard dubbed Wi-Fi 5 with a transfer rate of up to 6.8 Gbps.

The next step in development is 11ax, which itself corresponds to two revisions. Version 1 is Wi-Fi 6, which supports two frequency bands, 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz, with a transfer rate of up to 9.6 Gbps. The second, Wi-Fi 6E, launched in 2020, added support for the 6 GHz band to the standard, while also bringing a host of other features that laid the foundation for Wi-Fi 7.

What is Wi-Fi 7? What's new?

The next revision of the 802.11 IEEE standard is IEEE 802.11be EHT, also known as Wi-Fi 7. The EHT here refers to the upcoming ultra-high-speed transmission standard.

The 6 GHz band is a new addition to Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7 will focus on making the most of the new band. WI-Fi 7 doubles the transmission bandwidth of the 6 GHz band, increasing its potential rate to 46.1 Gbps, which is undoubtedly a huge leap. The implementation principle is actually to use two channels in the 5 GHz and 6 GHz frequency bands that are adjacent to each other at the same time.

Wi-Fi 6E is a transitional generation, while Wi-Fi 7 is a full-blown generation that will see usability improvements. The IEEE also discussed how the next version of Wi-Fi will reduce latency while increasing transmission bandwidth. The Wi-Fi 7 standard is not yet finalized, so there will definitely be some changes between the current draft and the actual release.

Multi-Link Operation (MLO)

Multi-link operation (MLO) is currently a proposed feature, and if it makes its way into the final standard, it will be a key improvement in next-generation Wi-Fi. As mentioned earlier, Wi-Fi 7 operates on the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands. But so far, devices with Wi-Fi receivers can only tap into one of those bands at a time. So when using a dual-band router, we see two different Wi-Fi networks in the Wi-Fi list.

With multi-link operation, Wi-Fi 7 will allow users to establish multiple connections between devices and access points (mostly routers) across all frequency bands. As TP-Link points out in a blog post, this will give users faster access to their devices and lower latency, bringing them closer to an online Ethernet connection in terms of connection quality. This concept of multiple connections isn't new to Wi-Fi, but the attempt to access multiple links at the same time promises to make MLO a game-changer.

4K Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (4K-QAM)

Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM), a fundamental feature of the latest generation of Wi-Fi, helps convert digital packets into analog signals that can be converted by access points. Wi-Fi uses radio waves to transmit data, and QAM can change the phase (timing) and amplitude of these waves, thereby improving transmission efficiency.

"QAM" is also linked to a number, usually a multiple of 2, indicating how many signals it can superimpose. Wi-Fi 6 introduced 1024QAM, which means that QAM can superimpose 1024 signals at a time, thereby transmitting more data. The goal of Wi-Fi 7 is to stack 4096 signals at a time through 4KQAM, reaching 4 times the number of signals available in Wi-Fi 6. The TP-Link article points out that this will make the data transfer rate of Wi-Fi 7 20% higher than that of Wi-Fi 6.

Automatic Frequency Coordination (AFC)

Since the 6 GHz band is still new to the Wi-FI standard, there are still a lot of pieces to work out. 6 GHz is not exclusive to Wi-Fi, and actually has a variety of other uses, including for federal agencies such as NASA. Considering the existence of "native people", 6 GHz is likely to be interfered in Wi-Fi, which will affect the end-use experience. Therefore, automatic frequency modulation (AFC) technology came into being.

AFC is a specialized 6 GHz FM system. It first analyzes existing 6 GHz signals and antenna patterns to create a shared database, and then uses the information to avoid interference. According to RCSBireless, Wi-Fi will use low-power access points indoors and standard-power access points outdoors, where the latter is more susceptible to interference. To this end, AFC algorithm helps Wi-Fi 7 obtain higher power to avoid interference, which also makes it a key technology to simplify the use of 6 GHz.

Wi-Fi 7 performance demo and real speed

We've discussed the features of Wi-Fi 7 from a purely theoretical standpoint, but at the end of the day, it's real-life performance that matters. Wi-Fi 7 is still in the early stages of development, but we've already seen performance demos. Not long ago, Intel and Broadcom brought us a live Wi-Fi demo scene.

From the display, a laptop equipped with an Intel Core processor obtained a stable transmission rate of 5 Gbps after connecting to a Broadcom access point, which is five times the previous Wi-Fi 6 transmission capacity. Since Wi-Fi 7 is still in early development, we're not sure if the final rate will stay at this level. However, as mentioned earlier, its maximum theoretical upper limit is as high as 46.1 Gbps. Although the real-world transmission effect is bound to be compromised, it is still possible for the full version to achieve a throughput of 30 to 40 Gbps.

Wi-Fi 7 vs Wi-Fi 6E vs Wi-Fi 6

While both Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 use the 6 GHz band, there are quite a few notable differences between the two. First of all, Wi-Fi 6E is actually a transitional generation, and Wi-Fi 7 is a new generation of comprehensive leap. Compared with the theoretical upper limit of the 9.6 Gbps transmission rate of Wi-Fi 6E, Wi-Fi 7's 46.1 Gbps can be said to be completely crushed. In addition, Wi-Fi 6E only supports 1024QAM, while Wi-Fi 7 supports 4 times the 4KQAM of the former.

There are many similarities between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, the most intuitive of which is that the maximum transmission bandwidth of both is 9.6 Gbps. Wi-Fi 6E uses the 6 GHz band, but the lack of supporting features prevents it from increasing the bandwidth a step further. Wi-Fi 7 can significantly improve the transmission level through multi-link operation.

Wi-Fi 7 also increases the channel bandwidth from 160 MHz for Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E to 320 MHz. To explain here, the Wi-Fi standard supports multiple frequency bands, such as the aforementioned 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz, and different frequency bands have multiple bandwidths, such as 20 Mhz in the 2.4 GHz band, and 5 GHz in the 5 GHz band. 40/80MHz. Wi-Fi 7 extends the channel bandwidth to 320 Mhz, which means more data can be transmitted.

These features of Wi-Fi 7 not only achieve an all-round improvement in speed, delay and device support, bringing a better wireless Internet experience, but also make Wi-Fi 7 a stronger intelligence beyond Wi-Fi 6/6E Home local network.

When will Wi-Fi 7 be available?

Currently Wi-Fi 7 is still in development, so different sources give different times when it will be available. However, considering that the devices currently on the market that support Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are still relatively limited, I am afraid that Wi-Fi 7 will not and need not come too soon.

The Times of India reported that Eric McLaughlin, vice president of Intel’s wireless solutions, once said that the company will support Wi-Fi 7 in products from 2024, so the time to actually appear in the market may be in 2025. As for the earliest devices, it may be launched in 2023, but the first products may not be able to fully realize the potential promised by Wi-Fi 7, after all, they have been listed before the official release of the standard. At present, Qualcomm has announced the FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7 platform, and it is expected that more Wi-Fi 7 devices will meet with you before the official standard is implemented.

Of course, these devices won't work until the IEEE finalizes the Wi-Fi 7 standard. The IEEE's standard release plan should be 2024, so affordable and truly available WI-Fi 7 hardware won't be able to land in most major global markets until late 2025 to early 2026.

Shall we upgrade to Wi-Fi 7?

It is still some time before the release of Wi-Fi 7, but the related news has already caused a sensation in the market. You may be wondering if, or when, you need to upgrade your hardware. In fact, most users are very satisfied with the existing Wi-Fi facilities, and there is no need to rush to upgrade. And with the arrival of Wi-Fi 7, there must be a lot of upgrade costs. Therefore, it is of little significance to try early adopters, unless your industrial-scale operation scenarios, smart home usage conditions, or the actual demand for super-high-speed Internet access experience can no longer be held back.

For other friends, you might as well go with the flow and wait for Wi-Fi 7 to gradually become the current standard in the market. At that time, various devices will naturally be upgraded to the Wi-Fi 7 standard. At that point, it will be more scientifically sensible to overhaul Wi-Fi equipment.

So for now, unless there is a clear and urgent need, there is no need to upgrade existing wireless equipment until Wi-Fi 7 is officially released. For the time being, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E are clearly a more secure and reliable upgrade direction. Let us wait for the arrival of Wi-Fi 7 and enjoy the wonderful experience brought by another round of technological iterations.