Since its introduction 25 years ago, Wi-Fi has played a vital role in helping us stay connected at home, work and in public. Today we expect a standard level of connectivity wherever we go, even in large outdoor spaces like parks and baseball diamonds.

As is typical with technology, the earliest versions of Wi-Fi were more limited. Today, we use a plethora of Wi-Fi enabled devices including computers, smartphones, gaming consoles and health/fitness devices to enhance productivity, organization, entertainment, health and even safety.

The origin of Wi-Fi

The origins of Wi-Fi can be traced back to a 1985 FCC ruling that released the 900 megahertz (MHz), 2.4 gigahertz (GHz), and 5.8GHz bands of radio spectrum for unlicensed use by anyone . Technology companies build wireless networks and devices to take advantage of the newly available radio spectrum, but the lack of common technical standards has led to fragmentation as manufacturers' devices are rarely compatible.

In 1997, IEEESA released the technical standard when the groundbreaking IEEE802.11™ Wi-Fi was first introduced to the market, allowing wireless data transmission at speeds of up to 2Mbit/s using the unlicensed 2.4GHz radio spectrum.

The development of the IEEE802.11 Wi-Fi standard continues today, providing faster data transfer rates, longer range, and more reliable and secure connections. All IEEE802.11 standard amendments are developed in such a way that equipment operating according to their specifications will be backward compatible with earlier versions, which enables any modern IEEE802.11-based equipment to communicate with older products.

2023 forecast

Wi-Fi7: The next step in Wi-Fi

There are many market drivers for faster, better Wi-Fi, including the rapid growth and adoption of the Internet of Things, where more and more devices extend their functionality through connectivity. Sensor technology embedded in IoT devices continues to become cheaper, more advanced, and more widespread. In turn, availability and cost-effectiveness drive innovation for new sensor applications, including large-scale monitoring and detection.

In the home, more and more mundane items are transformed into connected devices every day. The modern smart home includes IoT thermostats, alarm systems, smart TVs, fitness and home medical monitors, and other devices like gaming systems and wireless speakers that require speed and low latency. Consumers will benefit from Wi-Fi 7 for gaming, AV/VR and video applications, and smart home services.

For enterprises, Wi-Fi7 will benefit IoT and IIoT applications such as industrial automation, surveillance, remote control, AV/VR and other video-based applications. In addition, Wi-Fi7 brings more flexibility and functions for enterprises to carry out digital transformation.

Wi-Fi7 is based on the functions defined in the IEEEEP802.11be™ Amendment Draft. Wi-Fi7 is a major development milestone for Wi-Fi technology, which will provide four times faster data rate (about 40Gbit/s) and twice the bandwidth (320MHz channels, compared to 160MHz channels for Wi-Fi6). Wi-Fi 7 also supports more efficient and reliable use of available and contiguous spectrum through multi-band/multi-channel aggregation, and other means. The standard includes numerous enhancements to the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) protocol and many other improvements to existing Wi-Fi capabilities.

Wi-Fi7 will also double the eight independent data streams of Wi-Fi6 to 16 spatial streams. It uses Coordinated Multi-User MIMO (CMU-MIMO), which is a significant improvement over multi-user MIMO.

The new Wi-Fi 7 specification also uses Multi-User Resource Units (MRUs) to avoid interference, allowing for selective puncturing of overlapping parts of the spectrum so that data flows only on clear frequencies. It can help improve data rates and reliability in crowded Wi-Fi environments, such as in apartment buildings or large office environments.

From a user's perspective, Wi-Fi 7 will be faster, have lower latency, support more devices, and perform better in crowded Wi-Fi spaces and where Wi-Fi networks overlap. Of course, in order to take advantage of these advantages, users need faster Internet speeds from service providers.

Looking Ahead: IEEE802.11 Standard for Emerging Wi-Fi Use Cases

IEEE 802.11be, and future iterations of IEEE 802.11ax and IEEE 802.11 for Wi-Fi 6, can also support next-generation Wi-Fi applications. The IEEE802.11 working group has established several dedicated interest groups to investigate many of these issues. Here are some examples:

AIMLTIG focuses on describing use cases for the suitability of AI/ML in 802.11 systems and studies the technical feasibility of supporting AI/ML functions. Developers, and deployers, of AI/ML protocols over wireless networks are expected to benefit from more optimized and efficient support for exchanging AI/ML-related data exchange, such as reduced overhead and latency. WLAN users, OEMs and network operators are expected to benefit from improved user experience, greater resource efficiency and improved network performance.

Instead, AMPTIG is describing use cases for IoT devices supporting 802.11 ambient power and investigating the technical feasibility of features to support 802.11 WLANs for IoT devices supporting ambient power. Battery-free IoT technology is expected to significantly reduce the maintenance workload of IoT networks and devices, and expand greener and safer application scenarios. The technology will be applied in verticals such as agriculture, smart grid, mining, manufacturing, logistics, smart home, transportation, etc.

The Ultra High Reliability Research Group is researching technologies that can improve the reliability of WLAN connections, reduce latency, improve manageability, increase throughput, including different levels of signal-to-noise ratio, and reduce power consumption at the device level. Due to the increasing importance of Metaverse and AR/VR communications, the need for higher throughput/data rates is also evolving.