Wi-Fi 7 is coming

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Just as Wi-Fi 6E products hit the market, Wi-Fi 7, the next generation of wireless networking protocol, is on its way. The Wi-Fi Alliance network hasn’t quite finalized the standard yet for what is also known un-sexily as IEEE 802.11be, but that didn’t prevent specialty chipmakers like MediaTek from preparing compatible prototype devices for demonstration purposes. The company wants to show its customers and partners upfront how smoothly network-traffic flows, even with interference or congestion, with the simultaneous use of several frequency bands.

Wi-Fi 7 should deliver a theoretic maximum throughput of at least 30GBps, which is a nice boost from Wi-Fi 6’s 9.6GBps and an even bigger leap from Wi-Fi 5’s 3.5GBps. The standard aims to improve users’ experience with new technologies such as 4K and 8K streaming, virtual and augmented reality, as well as cloud gaming. Wi-Fi 7 should also be backward compatible with products using the 2.4, 5, and 6 GHz frequency bands. While there is no official date yet for the IEEE 802.11be standard, MediaTek says that the first Wi-Fi 7 devices should be available in 2023.

⇨ Ars Technica, Scharon Harding, “Wi-Fi 7 hardware demos herald next-gen wireless networking.”

2022-01-19