Many of us don’t spend time upgrading our networking gear very often. Even though the first Wi-Fi 6 routers hit the market in 2019, chances are that you aren’t using one yet. You had to learn the deal with Wi-Fi 6 first, and now Wi-Fi 6E devices are incoming. Well, buckle up: Wi-Fi 7 is almost here. The upcoming Wi-Fi 7 standard isn’t a radical departure from previous generations. For one, Wi-Fi 7 will continue to operate in the 2.4, 5, and 6GHz frequency bands. However, it does look like it will significantly improve connection reliability and stability. Here’s what you can expect from the next-gen wireless connectivity standard, and when it might start appearing in gadgets you can actually buy.

What Is Wi-Fi 7?

Almost everyone is using Wi-Fi for connecting their devices for smooth and easy go wireless connections. With the explosion of smart devices, it has become common for most homes to have a set up for 4K streaming, gaming and IoT devices. In addition, the pandemic brought about an increase in the internet appetite of a family due to work from home for adults and online classes for children becoming the new normal. With increasing load and demand for using wireless connections, we also see challenges related to latency, throughput, reliability and quality of service (QoS).

To improve Wi-Fi capability for a changing world, IEEE has come up with 802.11be which would also be termed Wi-Fi 7. The standard, nicknamed Extremely High Throughput (EHT), focuses on incrementally improving many of the features added in previous standards, including Wi-Fi 6. The Wi-Fi 7 draft spec spells out backward compatibility with legacy devices in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands, which means you won’t need all-new devices or hardware to connect to a Wi-Fi 7-enabled router.

With concepts like ‘multi-link operation’ (MLO) where devices can operate to transmit and receive data through multiple frequency bands and channels at the same time, can help in cases where your networking setup is disrupted by external interference or even just congestion from nearby devices. Wi-Fi 7 router will be able to utilize all bands and channels available dynamically to speed up connections or avoid bands with high interference. Put another way, the days of manually configuring a device to be “on” a 2.4-GHz or 5-GHz network appear to be over. Wi-Fi 7 will simply choose which frequency band has the lowest congestion, and send the data over that channel.

WiFi 7 aims to increase the data transfer rate which boosts speed while reducing latency for use-cases like live streaming and gaming. Latency here simply refers to the amount of time taken by the signal to travel from your router or access point to your device and back. If you’ve ever had to deal with long pauses during video calls, you’re familiar with these delays. As you’d expect, the delay tends to worsen as you move away from the signal source. However, network congestion can also lead to higher than expected latency numbers.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) introduced with Wi-Fi 6, allows routers to handle more connected devices and make more efficient use of the available spectrum. Wi-Fi 7 aims to take these efficiency gains one step further with coordinated OFDMA. In simple terms, this multi-AP feature would be achieved by coordination with multiple shared APs to deliver better performance over larger networks.


With the usage of the 6 GHz band, we would be able to get channels bandwidth up to 320 MHz whereas a 5 GHz band restricts it to 160 MHz and a 2.4 GHz band can only generate up to 20 MHz. This allows faster connections and 4096 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) technology that allows more data crammed into each hertz. The kicker, however, is that the 320MHz channel isn’t always available. Instead, Wi-Fi 7 can combine two 160MHz channels in the high (5 and 6-GHz) bands to create an effective 320MHz data channel. Wi-Fi 7 can use then these channels as it chooses, such as using one radio for communicating to a device, and another for receiving data. Wi-Fi 7 also incorporates “preamble puncturing,” which is a more aggressive way of handling interference, according to Qualcomm. If a Wi-Fi 7 router is trying to connect to a channel that’s partially interfered with, the router doesn’t give up. Instead, it simply grabs the channel bandwidth that’s not being interfered with. The upshot is that Wi-Fi 7 will more efficiently use data.

Finally, Wi-Fi 7 will also boost the number of spatial streams to 16. When combined with the wider channel support, Intel estimates the new standard should deliver a theoretical maximum data rate of 46Gbps. That’s just over a 5x increase from Wi-Fi 6’s 9Gbps.

What Will Wi-Fi 7 mean to us?

The performance and efficiency improvements that Wi-Fi 7 promises are impressive, but do we need them? Isn’t Wi-Fi 6 good enough? The specifications for Wi-Fi 7 are based on the anticipation of increased adoption of use cases with strict latency and reliability requirements. Wi-Fi 6 meets the demand for these use cases today, but Wi-Fi 7 enhancements will allow Wi-Fi to scale as adoption – and hence traffic density – grows and as requirements become more stringent. Wi-Fi 7 provides a forward path to ensure that Wi-Fi retains the scalability to carry increasing traffic loads and continues to meet users’ requirements.

Wi-Fi 7 brings more flexibility and capabilities to enterprises as they embark on the digital transformation. Wi-Fi 7 and 3GPP-based 5G will work together to introduce edge computing, distributed and cloud architectures, virtualization and digitalization in the emerging private wireless networks (PWN). More specifically, Wi-Fi 7 will improve support for applications that require deterministic latency, high reliability and quality of service (QoS).

In the enterprise, this will benefit IoT and IIoT applications, such as industrial automation, surveillance, remote control, AV/VR and other video-based applications. Consumer users can benefit from Wi-Fi 7 for gaming, AV/VR and video applications, and for smart-home services.

Beyond specific use cases, Wi-Fi 7 will continue to expand the availability of Wi-Fi and transport most of the wireless traffic in the enterprise, public and residential environments, in a cost-effective way and further improve the efficiency in using precious spectrum resources.

What Wi-Fi 7 can’t do, of course, is improve the internet speeds coming into the place where you live, and until broadband provision improves across the board, these enhanced wifi technologies aren’t going to be all that noticeable. It’s likely that business and industry use will drive the adoption of Wi-Fi 7, to begin with, so you might notice it first while you’re travelling—if you’re not already hooked up to 5G, that is.

When Will Wi-Fi 7 Be Available?

The entire Wi-Fi 7 proposition depends on designing, manufacturing and testing the next generation of Wi-Fi chips. Expect the major chipmakers, including Broadcom, MediaTek, Qualcomm and others, to create their own circuits for bringing Wi-Fi 7 to reality in the best Wi-Fi routers and client devices such as phones, tablets and notebooks. Expect to see tri-band and quad-band designs for traditional routers and high-performance mesh kits.

Unfortunately, at a time when the world is starved for semiconductor products of all types, it might take longer than expected to get this generation of Wi-Fi technology off the CAD screen and to market. Look for the first Wi-Fi 7 products to appear sometime in late 2023 or early 2024.

Even though it has been a full year since Wi-Fi 6E was finalized, most countries have yet to delicense the new 6GHz spectrum for public use. According to this list compiled by the Wi-Fi Alliance, major markets like the US, UK, and EU countries have delicensed the spectrum, allowing it to be used for indoor applications. However, there are still some notable exceptions. Australia and Japan, for example, are still considering action, while other key markets like India haven’t responded to the industry’s demand at all.

Where will Wi-Fi 7 be used?

So there is a ton of new technology being put into the next WiFi version, and it’s not just a bunch of isolated features, some of them actually play off each other. This version will offer high network speed and is specifically intended to have solutions for low latency devices in IIoT, metaverse, social gaming, cloud computing, XR, AR, and VR amongst other areas with features like Wi-Fi Sensing and Open Roaming where Wi-Fi capable clients can connect to available hotspots without having to connect and login. The future is exciting and hopefully, we’ll get it as soon as they say.

Many of us don’t spend time upgrading our networking gear very often. Even though the first Wi-Fi 6 routers hit the market in 2019, chances are that you aren’t using one yet. You had to learn the deal with Wi-Fi 6 first, and now Wi-Fi 6E devices are incoming. Well, buckle up: Wi-Fi 7 is almost here. The upcoming Wi-Fi 7 standard isn’t a radical departure from previous generations. For one, Wi-Fi 7 will continue to operate in the 2.4, 5, and 6GHz frequency bands. However, it does look like it will significantly improve connection reliability and stability. Here’s what you can expect from the next-gen wireless connectivity standard, and when it might start appearing in gadgets you can actually buy.

What Is Wi-Fi 7?

Almost everyone is using Wi-Fi for connecting their devices for smooth and easy go wireless connections. With the explosion of smart devices, it has become common for most homes to have a set up for 4K streaming, gaming and IoT devices. In addition, the pandemic brought about an increase in the internet appetite of a family due to work from home for adults and online classes for children becoming the new normal. With increasing load and demand for using wireless connections, we also see challenges related to latency, throughput, reliability and quality of service (QoS).

To improve Wi-Fi capability for a changing world, IEEE has come up with 802.11be which would also be termed Wi-Fi 7. The standard, nicknamed Extremely High Throughput (EHT), focuses on incrementally improving many of the features added in previous standards, including Wi-Fi 6. The Wi-Fi 7 draft spec spells out backward compatibility with legacy devices in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands, which means you won’t need all-new devices or hardware to connect to a Wi-Fi 7-enabled router.

With concepts like ‘multi-link operation’ (MLO) where devices can operate to transmit and receive data through multiple frequency bands and channels at the same time, can help in cases where your networking setup is disrupted by external interference or even just congestion from nearby devices. Wi-Fi 7 router will be able to utilize all bands and channels available dynamically to speed up connections or avoid bands with high interference. Put another way, the days of manually configuring a device to be “on” a 2.4-GHz or 5-GHz network appear to be over. Wi-Fi 7 will simply choose which frequency band has the lowest congestion, and send the data over that channel.

WiFi 7 aims to increase the data transfer rate which boosts speed while reducing latency for use-cases like live streaming and gaming. Latency here simply refers to the amount of time taken by the signal to travel from your router or access point to your device and back. If you’ve ever had to deal with long pauses during video calls, you’re familiar with these delays. As you’d expect, the delay tends to worsen as you move away from the signal source. However, network congestion can also lead to higher than expected latency numbers.

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) introduced with Wi-Fi 6, allows routers to handle more connected devices and make more efficient use of the available spectrum. Wi-Fi 7 aims to take these efficiency gains one step further with coordinated OFDMA. In simple terms, this multi-AP feature would be achieved by coordination with multiple shared APs to deliver better performance over larger networks.


With the usage of the 6 GHz band, we would be able to get channels bandwidth up to 320 MHz whereas a 5 GHz band restricts it to 160 MHz and a 2.4 GHz band can only generate up to 20 MHz. This allows faster connections and 4096 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) technology that allows more data crammed into each hertz. The kicker, however, is that the 320MHz channel isn’t always available. Instead, Wi-Fi 7 can combine two 160MHz channels in the high (5 and 6-GHz) bands to create an effective 320MHz data channel. Wi-Fi 7 can use then these channels as it chooses, such as using one radio for communicating to a device, and another for receiving data. Wi-Fi 7 also incorporates “preamble puncturing,” which is a more aggressive way of handling interference, according to Qualcomm. If a Wi-Fi 7 router is trying to connect to a channel that’s partially interfered with, the router doesn’t give up. Instead, it simply grabs the channel bandwidth that’s not being interfered with. The upshot is that Wi-Fi 7 will more efficiently use data.

Finally, Wi-Fi 7 will also boost the number of spatial streams to 16. When combined with the wider channel support, Intel estimates the new standard should deliver a theoretical maximum data rate of 46Gbps. That’s just over a 5x increase from Wi-Fi 6’s 9Gbps.

What Will Wi-Fi 7 mean to us?

The performance and efficiency improvements that Wi-Fi 7 promises are impressive, but do we need them? Isn’t Wi-Fi 6 good enough? The specifications for Wi-Fi 7 are based on the anticipation of increased adoption of use cases with strict latency and reliability requirements. Wi-Fi 6 meets the demand for these use cases today, but Wi-Fi 7 enhancements will allow Wi-Fi to scale as adoption – and hence traffic density – grows and as requirements become more stringent. Wi-Fi 7 provides a forward path to ensure that Wi-Fi retains the scalability to carry increasing traffic loads and continues to meet users’ requirements.

Wi-Fi 7 brings more flexibility and capabilities to enterprises as they embark on the digital transformation. Wi-Fi 7 and 3GPP-based 5G will work together to introduce edge computing, distributed and cloud architectures, virtualization and digitalization in the emerging private wireless networks (PWN). More specifically, Wi-Fi 7 will improve support for applications that require deterministic latency, high reliability and quality of service (QoS).

In the enterprise, this will benefit IoT and IIoT applications, such as industrial automation, surveillance, remote control, AV/VR and other video-based applications. Consumer users can benefit from Wi-Fi 7 for gaming, AV/VR and video applications, and for smart-home services.

Beyond specific use cases, Wi-Fi 7 will continue to expand the availability of Wi-Fi and transport most of the wireless traffic in the enterprise, public and residential environments, in a cost-effective way and further improve the efficiency in using precious spectrum resources.

What Wi-Fi 7 can’t do, of course, is improve the internet speeds coming into the place where you live, and until broadband provision improves across the board, these enhanced wifi technologies aren’t going to be all that noticeable. It’s likely that business and industry use will drive the adoption of Wi-Fi 7, to begin with, so you might notice it first while you’re travelling—if you’re not already hooked up to 5G, that is.

When Will Wi-Fi 7 Be Available?

The entire Wi-Fi 7 proposition depends on designing, manufacturing and testing the next generation of Wi-Fi chips. Expect the major chipmakers, including Broadcom, MediaTek, Qualcomm and others, to create their own circuits for bringing Wi-Fi 7 to reality in the best Wi-Fi routers and client devices such as phones, tablets and notebooks. Expect to see tri-band and quad-band designs for traditional routers and high-performance mesh kits.

Unfortunately, at a time when the world is starved for semiconductor products of all types, it might take longer than expected to get this generation of Wi-Fi technology off the CAD screen and to market. Look for the first Wi-Fi 7 products to appear sometime in late 2023 or early 2024.

Even though it has been a full year since Wi-Fi 6E was finalized, most countries have yet to delicense the new 6GHz spectrum for public use. According to this list compiled by the Wi-Fi Alliance, major markets like the US, UK, and EU countries have delicensed the spectrum, allowing it to be used for indoor applications. However, there are still some notable exceptions. Australia and Japan, for example, are still considering action, while other key markets like India haven’t responded to the industry’s demand at all.

Where will Wi-Fi 7 be used?

So there is a ton of new technology being put into the next WiFi version, and it’s not just a bunch of isolated features, some of them actually play off each other. This version will offer high network speed and is specifically intended to have solutions for low latency devices in IIoT, metaverse, social gaming, cloud computing, XR, AR, and VR amongst other areas with features like Wi-Fi Sensing and Open Roaming where Wi-Fi capable clients can connect to available hotspots without having to connect and login. The future is exciting and hopefully, we’ll get it as soon as they say.