The Wi-Fi world is moving fast. Case-in-point: with almost two years of planning work under its belt, the creation of Wi-Fi 8 is already being explored. 

While continued progress of the 802.11 standard is both necessary and exciting, the more immediate focus is now finding new applications for the new generation of the standard – Wi-Fi 7. Australian authorities have a part to play in this and will soon start a planning process that will affect what is and isn’t achievable.

Though other generations of Wi-Fi will still be in wide use, 2024 will certainly be the year that Wi-Fi 7 takes off. We are already seeing Wi-Fi 7 compatible technology be released, and this will continue throughout the year, with the first enterprise-grade products expected in the first half.

Wi-Fi 7 builds on work started by its predecessor, Wi-Fi 6E. Unlike earlier Wi-Fi generations that only utilised the 2.4 and 5 GHz spectrum bands, Wi-Fi 6E and now Wi-Fi 7 take advantage of spectrum in the 6 GHz band as well. The availability of the 6 GHz spectrum represents a crucial milestone in Wi-Fi technology, offering faster data speeds, increased capacity, reduced interference, and better latency. 

Wi-Fi 7 owes its advanced performance to new technical building blocks that allow for even more efficient and reliable wireless connectivity. These building blocks promise to help it live up to its technical name of the IEEE 802.11be draft amendment: Extremely High Throughput.

Where Wi-Fi 7 outshines its predecessors

One of the topline capabilities marketed for Wi-Fi 7 is its theoretical ability to support speeds up to 46 Gbps. It’s highly unlikely that anyone will ever reach a speed of 46 Gbps outside of a laboratory-controlled environment in any country, but even more so in Australia because current regulations make such speeds impossible.

But the fact that the standard is capable of such high throughput will create an efficiency gain for users and make Wi-Fi faster. Consumers will see improvements in AR/VR and 4K and 8K video streaming as a result. In addition, with Wi-Fi 7’s 4K QAM modulation capabilities, users may begin to get closer to some of those suggested data rates. 

Of all the features of Wi-Fi 7, Multi-Link Operation (MLO) is perhaps the most groundbreaking, enabling higher throughput, lower latency and increased reliability. MLO is likely to drive Wi-Fi upgrade decisions particularly for business users. For example, two Wi-Fi 7 APs could establish a mesh connection using a 6 GHz and 5 GHz radio at the same time, creating data aggregation that produces better data rates and higher throughput. When communicating to a Wi-Fi 7 AP, an MLO-capable Wi-Fi 7 client could steer transmission between a 6 GHz and 5 GHz channel, resulting in lower latency. 

This is where we will see the most significant differences in Wi-Fi generations, particularly for the enterprise. MLO will deliver lower latency and higher throughput, enabling enterprises to rely on it to support mission-critical and industrial enterprise applications.  

The spectrum of interest

The 6 GHz band is required for all newer generations of Wi-Fi and is set to power significant technological and economic advancements in Wi-Fi capabilities for at least the next decade. 

6 GHz adoption is somewhat slower outside of the US, but work is currently being done with regulatory bodies to open space and spectrum. From that perspective, all eyes will be on the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) in the first half of this year as it tackles the issue of allocation and potential spectrum harmonisation for future Wi-Fi 7 services.

As the ACMA wrote in its most recent spectrum outlook, “We are aware of stakeholder interest in current and future availability of spectrum for … future Wi-Fi 7-enabled services, alongside the variety of issues raised regarding the upper 6 GHz band. We will continue to explore planning options and monitor global developments before making a decision on the future use of this band. Depending on developments, Q2 2024 is targeted for consultation on the next steps in the 6 GHz band.”

We will continue to see improvements in spectrum availability with future generations of Wi-Fi. It’s all about being able to have more data flowing over our networks and being able to deliver services to clients and users faster than before, while eliminating latency and jitter. This will only continue as future generations of Wi-Fi emerge.