With WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E just beginning to be enjoyed, the arrival of a new wireless connectivity standard, WiFi 7, officially named 802.11be, is already on the horizon. This version promises much higher speeds and extremely low latency. To start discovering WiFi 7, we leave you with this article with its most outstanding qualities and the applications it will have once it is established.
What are the main features and innovations of the new WiFi 7?
The arrival of Wi-Fi 7 will mean a major qualitative leap in terms of the speed and latency of wireless connections. According to this article published in Cornell University’s ArXiv repository, Wi-Fi 7 will stand out for offering:
- A theoretical speed of 30 Gbps per access point, with the potential to reach 48 Gbps in physical layer and ideal conditions.
- The innovative MLO (Multi-Link Operation) technology. Thanks to this, different channels and bands can be combined to broadcast simultaneously to or from a user device, thus increasing the available bandwidth. These channels will be the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands combined.
- The modulation of the signal may be up to 4096-QAM when close to the router or access point, in each OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division multiple access) resource unit (RU).
- The channel width will be doubled from WiFi 6E’s 160 MHz to 320 MHz, if the environmental conditions are right.
- Also MIMO will be doubled from 8 spatial streams to 16 in some situations. This will result in higher speeds and greater WiFi signal penetration through beamforming, MU-MIMO (Multi-User-MIMO), STBC (Space-Time Block Coding), etc.
- Multi-Access Point Coordination, which enables coordination between neighbouring access points to optimise the use of resources.
In which environments will the arrival of WiFi 7 be felt and what benefits will they gain?
How will all these WiFi 7 features translate into real-world use cases? There are many sectors and environments that will benefit from this new standard. Let’s take a look at some of the most important ones.
In professional scenarios, the arrival of WiFi 7 will accelerate the development and implementation of solutions based on technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things) and IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things). With them, facets such as process automation will be boosted due to the optimisation of data transmission.
In addition, WiFi 7 also opens the door to the implementation of virtual reality, augmented reality, cloud computing, real-time communication, telemedicine and other applications that also require significant bandwidth, robustness and the lowest possible latency.
A very important feature of WiFi 7 is that thanks to its performance it will contribute a lot to the reduction of long meters of network cabling in places such as factories, office buildings, public buildings, etc. It will no longer be necessary to have cables to enjoy a connection with maximum performance. This makes installation and maintenance of the infrastructure quicker and easier, and reduces the weight load on various structures.
Looking at the home ecosystem, WiFi 7 will be an important driver for promoting entertainment alternatives such as online gaming and smooth 4K and 8K video content. In addition, its influence will also be felt in home automation and teleworking, among others.
When will WiFi 7 come?
We cannot yet give you an exact date for the adoption and establishment of the WiFi 7 standard in our society. However, there are estimates that place this date somewhere between 2023 and 2024. At least for the first version. But we will probably not see the first commercial devices until 2025, and full-featured devices will take at least another year.
In fact, some manufacturers of processors, chips and WiFi equipment are already working on devices that are compatible with WiFi 7. In any case, WiFi 7 is closer than it seems, although there is still a long way to go before it is made official by the Wi-Fi Alliance. Be that as it may, we must remain attentive to all the news that will arise around this standard. Of course, from Galgus we will be very attentive to all of them and we will bring them to you so that you are properly informed. Follow us, visit our blog and our profiles on social networks!
