Do you know the origin and function of Wi-Fi?

Since its introduction 25 years ago, Wi-Fi has played a vital role in helping us stay connected at home, work, and in public places. Today, we expect a standard level of connectivity wherever we go, even in large outdoor spaces like parks and baseball fields.

As is typical of technology, the earliest versions of Wi-Fi were more limited. Today, we use a multitude of Wi-Fi-enabled devices, including computers, smartphones, gaming consoles, and health/fitness devices, to improve productivity, organization, entertainment, health, and even safety.

The Origin of Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi's origins can be traced back to a 1985 Federal Communications Commission ruling that released bands of radio spectrum at 900 megahertz (MHz), 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) and 5.8GHz for anyone to use without a license. Technology companies built wireless networks and devices to take advantage of the newly available radio spectrum, but the lack of common technical standards led to fragmentation because manufacturers' equipment was rarely compatible.

In 1997, IEEESA published the groundbreaking IEEE 802.11™ technology standard when Wi-Fi was first introduced to the market, which allowed wireless data transmission at speeds of up to 2 Mbit/s using the unlicensed 2.4 GHz radio spectrum.

The development of the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard continues to this day, providing faster data transfer rates, longer ranges, and more reliable and secure connections. All IEEE 802.11 standard amendments are developed in such a way that devices operating according to their specifications will be backward compatible with earlier versions, which enables any modern IEEE 802.11-based device to communicate with older products.

2023 Forecast

Wi-Fi 7: The next step in Wi-Fi

There are many market drivers for faster, better Wi-Fi, including the rapid growth and adoption of the Internet of Things, where more and more devices are extending their functionality through connectivity. Sensor technology embedded in IoT devices continues to become cheaper, more advanced, and more widespread. In turn, availability and cost-effectiveness are driving innovation in new sensor applications, including large-scale monitoring and detection.

Every day, more and more ordinary objects are transformed into connected devices in the home. The modern smart home includes IoT thermostats, alarm systems, smart TVs, fitness and home medical monitors, and other devices such as gaming systems and wireless speakers that require speed and low latency. Consumers will benefit from Wi-Fi 7 for gaming, AV/VR and video applications, and smart home services.

For enterprises, Wi-Fi 7 will benefit IoT and IIoT applications such as industrial automation, monitoring, remote control, AV/VR and other video-based applications. In addition, Wi-Fi 7 brings more flexibility and functionality to enterprises for digital transformation.

Wi-Fi 7 is based on the features defined in the IEEE P802.11be™ draft revision. Wi-Fi 7 is a major development milestone for Wi-Fi technology, which will provide four times faster data rates (approximately 40Gbit/s) and twice the bandwidth (320MHz channels, compared to 160MHz channels for Wi-Fi 6). Wi-Fi 7 also supports more efficient and reliable use of available and continuous spectrum through multi-band/multi-channel aggregation and other means. The standard has made a large number of enhancements to the Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) protocol and many other improvements to existing Wi-Fi features.

Wi-Fi 7 will also double the eight independent data streams of Wi-Fi 6 to 16 spatial streams. It uses coordinated multi-user MIMO (CMU-MIMO), a significant improvement over multi-user multiple-input, multiple-output.

The new Wi-Fi 7 specification also uses multi-user resource units (MRU) to avoid interference, allowing overlapping parts of the spectrum to be selectively punched so that data flows only on clear frequencies. It can help improve data rates and reliability in crowded Wi-Fi environments, such as in apartment buildings or large office environments.

From a user's perspective, Wi-Fi 7 will be faster, have lower latency, support more devices, and perform better in crowded Wi-Fi spaces and where Wi-Fi networks overlap. Of course, to take advantage of these benefits, users need service providers to provide faster speeds.

Looking to the Future: IEEE 802.11 Standards for Emerging Wi-Fi Use Cases

IEEE P802.11be, as well as the IEEE 802.11ax standard for Wi-Fi 6 and future iterations of the IEEE 802.11 standard, can also support next-generation Wi-Fi applications. The IEEE 802.11 working group has established several dedicated interest groups to investigate many of these issues. Here are some examples:

AIMLTIG focuses on describing use cases for the applicability of artificial intelligence/machine learning in 802.11 systems and studying the technical feasibility of supporting AI/ML capabilities. Developers and deployers of AI/ML protocols over wireless networks are expected to benefit from more optimized and efficient support for exchanging AI/ML-related data, such as reducing overhead and latency. WLAN users, OEMs, and network operators are expected to benefit from improved user experience, greater resource efficiency, and improved network performance.

AMPTIG is describing the use cases of IoT devices that support 802.11 ambient power and investigating the technical feasibility of features to support 802.11 WLAN for IoT devices that support ambient power. Battery-free IoT technology is expected to significantly reduce the maintenance workload of IoT networks and devices and expand more environmentally friendly and safer application scenarios. This technology will be applied to vertical fields such as agriculture, smart grid, mining, manufacturing, logistics, smart home, transportation, etc.

The Ultra-High Reliability Research Group is investigating technologies that can improve WLAN connection reliability, reduce latency, improve manageability, increase throughput, including different signal-to-noise ratio levels, and reduce device-level power consumption. Due to the growing importance of the Metaverse and AR/VR communications, the need for higher throughput/data rates is also evolving.