Wi-Fi technology (originally referred to as WaveLAN) was first invented in the 1990s by researchers at the NCR Corporation. The first Wi-Fi standard, 802.11, was released in 1997 and achieved a then-blistering speed of 2 Mbps (megabits per second). That was a significant improvement to wired dial-up internet.
Modern Wi-Fi, such as Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7, can reach up to 46 Gbps — 23,000 times faster than the original Wi-Fi data exchange rates.
Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 enable never-before-seen wireless connectivity throughput in residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal applications. These new Wi-Fi standards are highly impactful, as they provide significant improvements over previous generations of Wi-Fi speed, efficiency, and capacity.
This article examines the latest Wi-Fi standards and what these new connectivity speeds mean for users.
What is Wi-Fi 6E?
Wi-Fi 6E is the latest update to the existing Wi-Fi 6 standard (802.11ax). Upon its release in May 2021, Wi-Fi 6 was limited by law to cover only the 2.4 GHz and 5Ghz bands, but now Wi-Fi 6E utilizes the 6GHz frequency band (5.925 - 7.124 GHz in the USA), which was recently made available for use by a variety of RF regulating bodies around the globe. This new band provides more spectrum for Wi-Fi devices to reduce network congestion and provide faster data throughput via the higher frequency channels.
Wi-Fi 6E also introduces new technologies to the Wi-Fi 6 standard like OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access) and SFR (Spatial Frequency Reuse) that aim to improve efficiency, thereby increasing network capacity.
Wi-Fi 6E can deliver data rates to devices at up to 9.6 Gbps, more than three times the speed of Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac standard). This speed increase can only be realized at the new, higher 6Ghz frequency bands, which makes Wi-Fi 6E the most impactful change to Wi-Fi standards since 802.11b, now 20 years ago.
What is Wi-Fi 7?
Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) is a still-developing standard for Wi-Fi but is expected to bring additional improvements to Wi-Fi 6E. Wi-Fi 7 aims to increase speed, efficiency, and capacity by introducing multi-band operation and MU-MIMO (multi-user, multi-input, multi-output) technologies. These new technologies will also help reduce system latency and increase spectrum utilization of Wi-Fi systems.
The Wi-Fi 7 standard is not entirely finalized. While we are beginning to see Wi-Fi 7-compatible devices launching in the market, the official standards will not likely be released until late 2023 or early 2024.
What is Multi-Band Operation Wi-Fi?
The first additional technology that Wi-Fi 7 aims to introduce is multi-band operation which, as the name suggests, is the simultaneous utilization of multiple bands of the RF spectrum. Wi-Fi 7 devices will be able to utilize 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz Wi-Fi signals simultaneously. Depending on the data rate demand from the device and bandwidth availability of the router, these devices will select which frequency band to utilize in real-time, which reduces spectrum interference. By using multiple frequency bands, Wi-Fi 7 devices will be able to take advantage of wider channels, enabling faster data rates and more efficient use of spectrum availability.
What is MU-MIMO Wi-Fi (Multi-User Muli-Input Multi-Output)?
MU-MIMO Wi-Fi, the second technology updated by Wi-Fi 7, will allow devices to communicate with multiple users simultaneously rather than sending data to one user at a time. Wi-Fi 5 standards were the first to introduce MU-MIMO downlink technology. Wi-Fi 6 brought MU-MIMO uplink functionality.
Wi-Fi 7, however, doubles the effective MU-MIMO spatial streams from 8 to 16, allowing for a maximum bandwidth per stream of 2400Mbps (previously 1200 Mbps, per Wi-Fi 6E).
What is MLO (Multi-Link Operation)?
Lastly, Wi-Fi 7 introduces MLO (Muti-Link Operation) functionality, perhaps the most impactful upgrade within the new standard. With current Wi-Fi standards, clients choose one band to transmit data, meaning a connection is established between two devices on a single band. The introduction of MLO will combine several frequencies across bands into a single connection.
For example, a Wi-Fi 6E router would choose a single channel on a single band, such as channel three on the 5Ghz band. Wi-Fi 7 MLO will allow routers to connect to a Wi-Fi 7 client via multiple bands and channels simultaneously as a single, combined connection. MLO provides for lower latency, significantly increases the data exchange rates possible, optimizes load balancing within each band, and increases the overall reliability of the network.
What the newest Wi-Fi standards mean for users
Ultimately, these new Wi-Fi standards aim to significantly improve previous Wi-Fi standards by increasing the speed, efficiency, and capacity of Wi-Fi networks. The number of connected devices continues to grow, and Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 standards aim to handle the demand. The latest Wi-Fi standards provide more RF spectrum availability by increasing utilization of 6Ghz bands, improved network efficiency via MU-MIMO channel expansion and MLO, and ultimately provide much higher data rates to users.
In commercial, industrial, municipal, and residential applications, Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 will enable network efficiency and reliability in environments with many connected devices. Buildings, factories, city streets, and smart homes will be able to support new applications that require more high-bandwidth and low-latency connections, such as VR/AR, high-resolution streaming, AI, and wireless communication applications of the future.
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