Wi-Fi 7 will be the latest generation of wireless networking technology, also known as IEEE 802.11be or Extremely High Throughput (EHT). It will offer enhanced speed, capacity, reliability, and efficiency, representing a significant advancement over its predecessors, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E. 

How is Wi-Fi 7 better than previous generations?

Wi-Fi 7 supports faster connection speeds

Wi-Fi 7 introduces 10 Gbps ports. Now that Wi-Fi is actually capable of multi-gig speeds, you’ll begin to see many Wi-Fi 7 access points with 10 Gbps ports. Naturally, this will increase your clients’ speeds, but only if you’re willing to upgrade your ISP connection to a multi-gig option.

Modulation enters its 4,096-QAM era. With 802.11be comes a lot more modulation. QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) is a measure of how much data can be transmitted through the air, converting those bits into analog signals. This will lead to much higher speeds, assuming your device is Wi-Fi 7 capable.

Bonded channels just got bigger. Assuming you’re connecting with a Wi-Fi 7 device, the 6 GHz band provides the opportunity to utilize not just 80 MHz and 160 MHz bonded channels, but even up to 320 MHz. Will that be practical in the real world? Unlikely. But it’s there!

So many spatial streams. With Wi-Fi 7, you get 16 spatial streams instead of 8 – what does that mean? You can support eight clients devices at full speed or sixteen at half-speed. That said, to get the promised theoretical rate of 46.1 Gbps, you’d need to run 16 streams simultaneously on the 6 GHz band on a 320 MHz bonded channel – an impossible feat.

Wi-Fi 7 reduces interference

6 GHz is officially here. Yes, Wi-Fi 6E technically offered the 6 GHz band—in addition to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz—but most manufacturers never made their devices compatible. With the advent of Wi-Fi 7, many more devices will eventually connect over this ultra-wide spectrum frontier, reducing interference, increasing speeds, and improving capacity. But while 160 MHz or 320 MHz bonded channels sounds incredible in theory, in practice, it likely will cause too much interference to be implemented.

Connect to all three bands at the same time. Using MLO (multi-link operation), Wi-Fi 7 compatible devices can connect to 2-3 bands at the same time. Although this reduces interference and increases speed, it also dramatically increases power consumption. As such, it’s not practical for mobile devices and laptops.

Wi-Fi 7 can save you power

Restrict your bandwidth usage. R-TWT (Restricted target wake time), an update to Wi-Fi 6’s TWT (Target wake time), enables the STAs in the base station system (BSS) to use enhanced medium access protection and resource reservation mechanisms for delivery of latency sensitive traffic. This will potentially save power compared to Wi-Fi 6 access points, assuming you’re not using MLO and configure this for your network.

When should you upgrade to Wi-Fi 7?

We recommend you ask yourself a few questions:

  1. Think about the last few times a new Wi-Fi standard hit the market – when did it make sense to upgrade? 3, 6, 12 months? More? 
  2. Does your team have the bandwidth to do a full refresh of all your access points? Do you have the budget to absorb a significant capital expense?
  3. Are you prepared to make infrastructure changes? across your network (including switches, firewalls, etc.) to ensure they’re compatible with new Wi-Fi 7 access points?
  4. Does your ISP connection support multigig internet? Are you willing to pay significantly more for it?
  5. What percentage of your live client devices and inventory support Wi-Fi 7?
  6. What is the adoption rate of phones, such as iPhone 16s, Pixel 8s, etc., across your company? Do your employees use these for work?
  7. Does your network require AR/VR level performance requirements?
  8. Brand new APs and devices will likely be more difficult to troubleshoot – what are your support needs?
  9. How many vendors offer Wi-Fi 7 access points? Have their access points been in the market long enough to be adequately evaluated? 

Or, simplify Wi-Fi 7 upgrades with Meter 

Meter streamlines every stage of network lifecycle management for our customers. Since everything related to the network is included in Meter’s end-to-end solution for one monthly subscription, Wi-Fi 7 access points will be upgraded at no additional cost for all Meter customers as soon as the hardware is available.

Additionally, Meter handles the entire installation and configuration to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7, so IT teams don’t have to allocate additional time and resources to managing the upgrade.

Interested in learning more?

Contact us