What is Wi-Fi 7, how will it enhance connectivity, and which devices will be available?

Wi-Fi 7 is the latest generation and will be standardized in 2024. Here's everything you need to know about it.

Key points:

• Wi-Fi 7 is the next-generation wireless LAN standard that offers higher data rates, efficiency, and capacity than Wi-Fi 6.
• Wi-Fi 7 supports three frequency bands - 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz, which is an improvement over both Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E.
• Some Wi-Fi 7 devices are already available, but most launches will take place after the standard is released next year.

What is Wi-Fi 7?

Wi-Fi 7 is the next generation of the IEEE 802.11 wireless local area network (WLAN) standard, specifically the IEEE 802.11be revision that is still under development. Wi-Fi 7 is a "simplified generation name" promoted by the Wi-Fi Alliance, a nonprofit organization that certifies Wi-Fi devices. Wi-Fi 7 is the successor to Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6, which are part of the IEEE 802.11ax standard.

802.11be or Wi-Fi 7 is referred to as Extremely High Throughput (EHT) Wi-Fi, describing the IEEE's goals in the new standard. In contrast, 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6) is referred to as High Efficiency (HE) Wi-Fi. Despite these goals, Wi-Fi 7 is expected to be a generational improvement, offering higher data rates, efficiency, capacity, and range than previous standards, in addition to lower latency and improved security. It aims to deliver at least 30 Gbps of throughput.

With these improvements, the Wi-Fi Alliance expects Wi-Fi 7 devices to deliver wireless innovation for “time-sensitive networking applications, including AR/VR, 4K and 8K video streaming, automotive, cloud computing, gaming and video applications, as well as mission-critical and industrial applications.”

Some devices already support Wi-Fi 7, thanks to a draft amendment to the IEEE 802.11be proposed in March 2021. However, most Wi-Fi devices won’t be available until after the final version of the amendment is released, which is expected to be officially adopted in early 2024. Just like previous generations, Wi-Fi 7 will be backwards compatible with legacy devices that support any of its frequency bands.

Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6E/6

Wi-Fi 7 supports three frequency bands, namely 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz. Wi-Fi 6 only supports two frequency bands, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, and Wi-Fi 6E only supports the 6 GHz band. The theoretical maximum link rate of Wi-Fi 7 is about 46 Gbps, but the actual performance will be significantly lower. In comparison, the maximum link rate of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6 is about 9.6 Gbps. While this means that Wi-Fi 7 is 4.8 times faster than Wi-Fi 6, it is about 2.4 times faster with the same radio configuration.

The new Wi-Fi 7 standard uses denser 4096-QAM (or 4K-QAM) modulation for data transmission, with a theoretical transmission rate 20% higher than the 1024-QAM of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6. Compared with 160 MHz on Wi-Fi 6E, it doubles the channel bandwidth to 320 MHz, doubles the capacity (number of concurrent devices), and increases user data speeds on a single device.

Compared to Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6, a new feature brought by Wi-Fi 7 is multi-link operation (MLO), which allows routers, access points (APs), and clients to send and receive data across multiple bands and channels simultaneously without having to quickly switch between them. This improves network throughput and capacity while reducing latency by up to 100 times compared to non-MLO configurations. Combined with 320 MHz ultra-wide channels, MLO can increase network capacity by 5 times.

Wi-Fi 7 also offers flexible channel utilization, known as multi-rule puncture, which improves interference resistance. Essentially, if part of the channel is affected, that part can be blocked while the rest of the channel can continue to be used. While Wi-Fi 6 has preamble puncture, Wi-Fi 7's Multi-RU puncture will be a major improvement in interference resistance.

Another advantage of Wi-Fi 7 over Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6 is the doubling of the number of spatial streams in a Multi-Use, Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MU-MIMO) setup, from 8 to 16. Combined with Multi-AP coordination, Wi-Fi 7 can support more distributed MIMO interfaces than earlier iterations.

Available Wi-Fi 7 devices

While a good way to find a specific type of Wi-Fi certified device is on the Wi-Fi Alliance's product search page, the organization doesn't yet list Wi-Fi 7 as a filter. That should change once the final standard is released in 2024. In the meantime, here's a non-exhaustive list of consumer products that are either already available or have recently announced support for Wi-Fi 7.

Keep in mind that most of these devices support the standard in a limited way, such as offering 2x2 UL/DL MU-MIMO support when the standard supports up to 16x16 UL/DL MU-MIMO.

router:

• Asus RT-BE96U and ROG Rapture GT-BE98
• Eero Max 7
• Linksys Velop Pro 7 BE11000
• Netgear Nighthawk RS700
• TP-Link Archer BE550,Archer BE800,Archer BE805,Archer BE900,and Archer GE800
• TP-Link Deco BE65,Deco BE85,and TP-Link Deco BE95

Smartphone:

• Asus ROG Phone 7,ROG Phone 7 Ultimate,ZenFone 10
• Honor Magic 5
• OnePlus 11 and OnePlus Ace 2 Pro
• Oppo Find X6 and Find X6 Pro
• Realme GT5
• Xiaomi 13T Pro and Mix Fold 3
• ZTE Nubia Red Magic 8S Pro and Pro+

Laptop:

• Acer Swift Edge 16
• Lenovo Legion Slim 7 and Legion Slim 7i