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Wi-Fi 7 to get the final seal of approval early next year, new standard is up to 4.8 times faster than Wi-Fi 6

https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/wi-fi-7-to-get-the-final-seal-of-approval-early-next-year-delivers-48-times-faster-performance-than-wi-fi-6

Better later than never?

Wi-Fi 7 to get the final seal of approval early next year, new standard is up to 4.8 times faster than Wi-Fi 6::There are a lot of 'draft' Wi-Fi 7 devices around, but 'Wi-Fi 7 Certified' devices will only come to market sometime next year.

88 comments

andrew

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How am I supposed to keep track without the two letter suffix that's non sequential?

mosiacmango

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Look at mister fancy pants over here with 2 letters while the rest of us are using the totally understandable "b" or "g" or "n."

CmdrShepard

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AX gang all day, baybee.

phoneymouse

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802.11b will always be my favorite. Brings me back to a simpler time.

FapFlop

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I like the 802.11 scheme. :(

CmdrShepard

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I'm only mad that they changed it because I put the effort in to learn the 802.11 standard.

Appoxo

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POPQUIZ: THE 802 standard for VLANs
Times ticking...

AtariDump

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Nope. Was wrong. No idea without looking it up.

noUsernamesLef7

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.1Q because Q has a tag on it

Patches

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Now do Ipv4 vs IPv6. Everything you learned is worthless.

neutron

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Whoever is behind USB version naming schemes, please take notice.

tagliatelle

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they have? And both wifi and UsB is still a mess to understand under the name.

ghastly_03_startup

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GiddyGap

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Well, then they have to rush out to buy a new, fancy router for the basement to support their newest thing. And round and round we go...

pineapplelover

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Well all they need is a router that supports that standard and devices that support that standard. However, I don't know if the devices have that standard yet, but, when they do, it should be useable.

generic

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I just upgraded to a WiFi 6E router. Both my phone and my laptop support 6E.

Speeds are great, until you leave the living room (where the router is). Go up to my bedroom, and 6E won't even connect. So it's fast, but 6Hz has trouble going through walls.

Most of the other devices in the house are on 5GHz and that's still super fast and able to reach basically everywhere.

Saik0Shinigami

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the difference between 5Ghz (5150-5895) and 6Ghz (5925-7125) is not really sufficient to blame for most home uses. It's expected as a rule to lose about 10-20% more power than 5Ghz through walls (where 5Ghz lost 100% more power than 2.4 Ghz does). It's much more likely that your new WAP just does less power or worse antenna than the old one did.

NerfHerder

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Whats a wired access point called?

generic

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A switch?

Saik0Shinigami

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Wireless defines how you access the point... Not that the access point itself is wireless.

A switch is technically a "standard" access point (or just ports in the wall connected back to the switch).

We use "Wireless" access point to denote access to the network without physical connections.

WAPs can connect to the network via wired or wireless means. Where most people will reference "WAP" as a wired (wired uplink) connected wireless access point... and Mesh (Wireless uplink) WAPs as wireless connected wireless access points.

Cycloprolene

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Almost certainly because your router isn't broadcasting at full power (30dbm or 1w).

obinice

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Damn, I don't think I even have WiFi 6 yet, haha. I've just not had any need for faster speeds.

I'm sure something will come along that'll make use of it though!

phoneymouse

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Wait till you’re streaming 8k video in each eye of your VR headsets. And, the whole family is watching in their headsets. You’ll need it some day.

EatYouWell

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That's why I'm dropping fiber in my house when I do my ethernet drops. Might as well pull 2 wires and future-proof it.

AtariDump

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40Gb fiber and CAT6e?

Nice.

EatYouWell

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It's even better, because I forgot that our neighborhood was getting FTTH until they started on my street this morning.

Patches

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8k Video in each eye.

Not even 5 minutes in - your internet throttles back to 56kbps because you hit the data cap.

Ghostalmedia

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This is primarily meant to replace wired local data transfer solutions like thunderbolt. Example, sending video data from a camera to an editing workstation.

The transfer speed of WiFi 7 is just over Thunderbolt 3.

Saik0Shinigami

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The transfer speed of WiFi 7 is just over Thunderbolt 3.

This is so wrong that it's absurd it's been here for 3 hours and nobody has called it out. The claim is "more than 40Gbps" (I believe 46Gbps is the number floating around) for wifi7. This will likely require 8x8 at 320MHz or even possibly 16x16 ( I don't remember if this was floated as an idea or not) which would require more or less the entire frequency range. Fine... But that's 46Gbps aggregate, meaning for up and down speeds. The split would then be 23/23 gbps, this is paper best case.

The reality is that you're going to lose about 50% of that off the top because wireless always does. So 12/12 if you're lucky.

What speeds does Thunderbolt 3 support? 40/40... 80gbps aggregate on paper. 22/22 in practice for a data-only channel (other modes can still access 40/22 quite readily). It's not even close.

clothes

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Woah. I assume Thunderbolt will still have latency benefits. For example, we're not going to have wireless eGPUs, surely? I hope I'm wrong, because wireless PCIe lanes would be amazing.

Takumidesh

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Cpus won't be able to handle the interrupts from speeds that high.

shortwavesurfer

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I am just glad that 6E and 7 have access to 6GHz so that once my devices support it i can disable both 2.4 and 5GHz to lower interference from neighboring networks. The higher it goes in frequency the less interference everyone will get.

circuscritic

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Less RF interference, sure, but a lot more wall and physical object interference as the higher frequencies aren't able to go through them nearly as well.

Overall, it's great to have more spectrum available, especially in a less crowded range. More options means more optimal solutions to be had.

Sibbo

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Just wait until we enter the gamma spectrum, then it should be quite penetrative.

circuscritic

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They already have that, but it's only been a limited release so far. Just a drop in the ocean.

shortwavesurfer

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Thats true. And the higher it goes the more money you have to spend to properly network. I have heard 60GHz requires you to be in the same room as the AP but gives fantastic speeds. What i eventually plan on doing is buying say a 24 port PoE switch and running 2 cables to the ceiling in each room (for redundancy) and putting an AP in every room. I know that will cost a good chunk of money, but with an AP in every room that would future proof the network for higher and higher frequencies in the future.

andrew

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If you're wanting to future proof, run conduit not just wires. For now a setup like that is overkill and probably straight up won't work well, since roaming is a client decision and the clients make really silly choices sometimes.

SidewaysHighways

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Yep! once everything runs on fiber or USB C, you can easily pull more wires to that location!

howrar

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I keep seeing this brought up but I can't find information on how they work. How do you actually get new wire through a conduit? Do they not get stuck in corners? Or on the ridges of the tubes? What if you need to send wires upwards?

nowwhatnapster

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A pull string is typically vacuumed though the conduit and left inside for attaching to and pulling wires through.

AtariDump

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Pull a pull string in the conduit along with the wires.

When you pull new cable you use the existing pull string and pull a new pull string through the conduit at the same time; this was you still have a pull string.

circuscritic

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60GHz is more of a PTP or PTMP use case spectrum i.e. outdoor, long range, high throughput, but requires line of sight.

I have an enterprise style network stack like you described, albeit a bit more. It allows me to be dedicate a single spectrum per SSID e.g. my IoT network is only 2.4GHz, or use multiple spectrums across multiple access points for a single SSID e.g. guest wifi uses 2.4GHz & 5GHz across several across points for roaming.

I also live in a location where that's required, or at least, warranted do to the coverage area and physical layout.

So with that said, you can't future proof yourself with an AP, as standards evolve and change - but you can somewhat protect yourself by running the right cable (Cat 6a). Regardless, if you're just trying it get wifi in two rooms, you probably only need a single access point, but far be it for me to lecture someone on excessive home IT spending.

shortwavesurfer

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I need more than one access point for sure. My house is made of brick and even the internal walls are extremely thick. So signals have real trouble penetrating the walls. That is why i intend to do 1 ap/room.

circuscritic

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Without knowing your floorplan, I can't really provide any additional insight.

I would just add that I'm guessing your doors aren't brick, so a ceiling mounted AP in a hallway, or another central location, would likely be able to provide good coverage through any doors within range.

Regardless, running quality cable conduit, and doing it properly, is the single best and most impactful thing you can do.

Good luck.

shortwavesurfer

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I am about 30FT from the router through 2 brick walls ~10 inches thick. 5GHz is to weak to be used at that range and will disconnect. I have to use 2.4 to stay connected.

sunbeam60

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This is it. All this speed is theoretical, unless you’re willing to fork out a lot for a grid of APs with LoS.

CmdrShepard

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It'd be real freakin awesome if every IoT device didn't still rely on 2.4Ghz

ghastly_03_startup

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Enk1

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But also prone to interference whenever the microwave is used. My wireless headphones lose their shit when the microwave kicks on

Tangent5280

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I think the more expensive microwave body offers better isolation.

AtariDump

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Same happened to me.

I bought a new microwave.

shortwavesurfer

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Tell me about it. I find that stupid as hell.

SmoothLiquidation

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It's a good excuse to use your old router on a separate network for those devices. If you have a smart enough switch, you can even keep them completely off your LAN, which can be good for security. YMMV though, and if you need direct access it won't work that way.

waitmarks

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You wont want to disable 2.4 and 5GHz on wifi 7. The reason it gets so much higher speeds than 6e is that it can send data on all 3 spectrum simultaneously. If you turn off 2.4 and 5GHz you would essentially be limiting yourself to 1/2 speed.

shortwavesurfer

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Yeah, it can do that. On cellular its called carrier aggrigation. However imo only having access to 320MHz of 6GHz spectum (3.2GBPS) is fine.

owlboy

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Cycloprolene

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93A1A71EABD6B6CD658458CC1F4

waitmarks

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Are the 320mhz wide channels going to be actually usable in the real world though? wider channels increase chance of interference. That’s why nearly everyone recommends 80mhz wide channels on 5ghz even though 160mhz channels have been available for a while. You dont usually see speed increases in the real world with the 160mhz channels except in specific situations.

Player2

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Some day most people will upgrade their devices and it will become smarter to go back to 5GHz

Would be funny, anyway

shortwavesurfer

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Maybe, bur doubtful since lower frequency goes farther

ilovesatan

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Maybe I will finally be able to afford a WiFi 6E router now.

Captainvaqina

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Exactly my thought. I need another omada ap and the 6e stuff is overpriced

onlinepersona

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"Wi-Fi 7 supports superior connectivity for emerging use cases with high levels of interactivity and immersion,"

How far can I be from the access point and how many walls can there be in between? WiFi at home is already pretty bad just two rooms over from the router.

thedeadwalking4242

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It's really just the nature of the beast. For higher throughput you need higher frequency. Higher frequency means less pentatration

onlinepersona

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At some point we'll have 1TB/s but it will require the devices to be kissing each other.

(Or we just move to light - LiFi)

thedeadwalking4242

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Lifi is honestly probably the best direction

isVeryLoud

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Hue

orion2145

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Meanwhile today I get an ad from eero for a WiFi 7 router system that costs $1699

tabular

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What do I need a wireless connection many times faster than my internet for? Streaming game rendering to future VR goggles?

EatYouWell

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Most people don't, and that's OK. You'll just upgrade whenever your current equipment breaks down.

But businesses will be a large market share for increased speeds.

timetraveller

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me over hear with my gigabit-ethernet plugs in every wall as if they were as important as electricity... upgrade those suckers to 10-gig-ethernet, and wifi-has nothing over other than mobility... mobility until you leave the room.. sounds about like being on a wire.

wireless needs a better understanding, and for most that have no understanding they just see faster as better, when no wireless is better than a wired connect, that is why the cellar towers, fiber connection, and even coax-connections all are needed to "power the wireless".

i'm shocked at how many new or remodeled homes have no "ethernet port" but yet they will have power plugs-n-mass every where in the house, electricity for everything, and then they plugin 5Ghz repeaters into all the wall sockets so that they get decent room to room speeds.

dmention7

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You have a point about how silly it is to scrimp on ethernet ports in new construction/remodels--wifi with a wired backhaul is unquestionably preferable to pure mesh.

But to say "wifi has nothing other than mobility" is purely asinine. It's like saying that planes offer nothing over cars except the ability to travel faster--yeah... that's kinda the point! Compared to the number of networked devices in the average home, there are very few current or near-future devices that could leverage even a gigabit connection fully, let alone justify a dedicated wired connection.

Streaming video needs a few 10s of Mbits tops, security cams are similar, streaming audio needs a fraction of that, your smart home devices & hubs are negligible, mobile phones and tablets downloading 100MB apps barely even blink at current wifi speeds. Even the average WFH-er is going to saturate their company's VPN before their wifi connection struggle.

Is an ethernet connection technically better in some of those cases? Sure, but the vast majority of people would notice no functional difference aside from having to plug in a second cable.

Patches

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Weird flex but ok

Linkerbaan

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Wifi 6 has become pretty affordable but the high speed 6E is still super expensive.

Is 7 an innovation or just more antennas and processing power usage?

lambda

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Yeah, I'll be waiting for some coverage to see how it actually is.

Imgonnatrythis

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Skimmer

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It's an entirely new standard, so no, it won't just be a firmware patch.

Omega_Jimes

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Will I be able to use it in another room? Because wow wifi 5 was awful, and 6 isn't that much better.

Fal

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Generally as wireless tech gets faster, it's less able to travel distances or penetrate stuff

Omega_Jimes

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That's the most frustrating thing. I have 3 mesh waps in my house, but if you connect in a different room you get 2.4ghz. At this point I need a mesh wap in every room.

As the wavelengths get shorter, so too does my patience :/

lud

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Hardwire them if possible. Mesh isn't great, way too much Wireless traffic that's disturbing each other.

Compared to ethernet, WiFi isn't duplex.

yessikg

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That really depends on the router you have, my wifi 6 works in all rooms

prole

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Do I have to have played Wi-Fi 1 though 6 in order to understand 7?

Darken

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arcadefx1

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Early adoption might be expensive.

I’ll wait as I put in WiFi 6E last year. I get 500-800mbps. I positioned 3 units through out. My laptops support WiFi 6 and 6E. So…no reason to upgrade since they cannot hit the higher speeds without direct line or adapter.

stealth_cookies

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Even Wifi 6E devices are way too expensive still, especially considering how poor 6GHz range is without a mesh system. I just upgraded to a new router since my old one would bottleneck my internet connection on wired, not because I needed faster wifi speeds.

jacktherippah

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I'm still on Wi-Fi 4.

darkghosthunter

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Always wondered about penetration and signal length. Does beat 2.4Ghz, still?

shortwavesurfer

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Speed is higher on 5GHz and 6GHz because the channels are wider. For every 10MHz of channel width you can get ~100mbps if there is no interference. 2.4GHz goes so far that it is pretty much impossible to get a channel with no interference and speeds suffer for it. 5GHz has much more bandwidth and lower range so you are much more likely to find a free channel to use unless you live in an apartment building or such. 6GHz has even larger bandwidth available and goes even less distance than 5GHz, though not much less, so finding a free channel should be even easier.

bruhduh

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Lower frequency have longer distance coverage, higher frequency have better speeds but shorter distance coverage, and here is common wavelengths of WiFi 2.4GHz 5GHz 6GHz, also new WiFi stands adds new features like mi-mo was added in WiFi 5 and something something raycasting WiFi was added in WiFi 6 and i honestly don't know what been added in WiFi 7 but specs gonna be better for sure

JohnEdwa

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If the cause of the poor 2.4ghz range was tons of interference on that band, then maybe. But lower frequencies simply go farther, so 6ghz will always have a lot shorter range than 2.4ghz. Though while it's impossible to change the laws of physics, it might be possible to change the laws around wireless telecommunication to allow it to transmit at a much higher power - not sure if WiFi 7 does.

DLSantini

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Pretty sure length is important for penetration. Wait... what were we talking about?

Ghostalmedia

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In theory, this should be like having wireless Thunderbolt. Hopefully cameras are quick to adopt this. This would be super handy for sending 8K video to a workstation.

ghastly_03_startup

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