What is Wi-Fi 7? Everything You Need to Know

Many people only recently upgraded to wi-fi 6 and some may be considering a jump to wi-fi 6e, but their successor is already in the works. The new standard promises faster connections, lower latency, and the ability to gracefully manage more connections than ever before, just like its predecessors.

It will be a good while longer than that before most of us should consider it, so if you are looking to improve your wi-fi today, it is not the answer. If you need to upgrade quickly, first you have to learn how to buy a routers before you check out our picks of the best.

What is the name of the network?

The 7th generation of wi-fi could offer speeds up to four times faster than the 6th generation. It also includes clever advances to increase capacity.

In the old naming convention, there were three different names for the same thing: wi-fi 7, wi-fi 6 and wi-fi 5. Like previous standards, it will be backwards compatible. You will need to upgrade your devices to take advantage of the new features. It means buying new access points and routers, as well as new phones, laptops, TVs, and so on.

What are the benefits of wi-fi 7?

It will be faster, support more connections, and be more adaptive to maintain reliable low latency performance.

The benefits will help deliver high-quality video and better cloud gaming, and they will serve applications that require high throughput and low latency. The benefits of congestion and interference are brought to areas with densely packed devices or neighboring networks that overlap. The latter is important for large venues.

What is the difference between the two: wi-fi 7 and wi-fi 6E?

You may wonder what distinguishes the two standards, which both promise the same advantages over previous standards by opening up the 6- GHz band. Since the three 2.4- GHz, 5 GHz, and 6- GHz bands are used in the same way, it's not a bad idea. Here are some improvements.

The channels are wider.

The bands are broken into channels. The band has 11 channels of 20 megahertz each. The 5- GHz band has 45 channels, but instead of being limited to a width of 20 MHz, they can combine to create 40 or 80 channels. The 6- GHz band supports 60 channels, and can be used as wide as 160 MHz with wi-fi 6E. There are channels that are up to 320 MHz wide. The bigger the channel, the more data it can transmit.

Imagine how much traffic a single lane road can handle compared to a three-lane highway or a six-lane superhighway.

Higher QAM.

QAM is a method to transmit and receive data. You can pack in more information if it's higher. 4K-QAM, 512-QAM, and 512-QAM were supported in the previous versions of the internet.

The benefits are complicated by signal strength, background noise, and interference. You need a stronger signal when QAM goes up. The increase in data rate was offered by the jump to a higher QAM. The increase in peak performance is a result of the leap to 4K-QAM.

There is a multi-link operation.

Multi-link operation is an exciting advancement in wi-fi. Every previous standard establishes a connection between two devices. A tri-band wi-fi 6E is able to connect two devices on a single band on a fixed channel.

MLO can combine several frequencies. A wi-fi 7 device can be connected to a wi-fi 7 device across two or more channels in different bands. Going back to our highway analogy, you can send traffic on the highway and the superhighway at the same time.

MLO allows for more efficient performance when speed isn't the priority. The best channel to use to avoid congestion and other interference is the one that is the most stable, and the one that has the lowest latency.

We discuss in our explainer how wi-fi 7 enhances existing technologies like OFDMA,MU-MIMO, and TWT.

When will wi-fi 7 be available?

The new standard is beginning to take shape, but it will likely be more than a year until we see the first devices.

The Networking Pro Series platform can deliver up to 33 Gbps of quad-band connection over 16 streams. Partners are working to integrate its technologies into devices. The two companies have also announced new technologies. More vendors will announce their plans in the coming months as the new standard is officially designated by the wi-fi alliance

Even when it arrives, it isn't going to sweep the other networks away. Both technologies will likely coexist for a long time.