What is worth knowing about Wi-Fi 7?
Technology providers, trying to keep up with growing needs, are introducing new, faster generations of wireless networks. After Wi-Fi 6, offering in practice a bandwidth of a few gigabits, WiFi 7 developing a dizzying 46 Gbit/s is already on the horizon!
Wi Fi 7 vs WiFi 6
WiFi 7, or in the nomenclature of the IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a technology with the symbol 802.11be (sometimes referred to somewhat non-canonically as WiFi 7 be or cat 7 WiFi for this reason), is a new, better and faster wireless networking standard expected to be approved later this year.
Advantages of WiFi 7, and therefore primarily the higher speed of WiFi 7, come mainly from three main advantages: additional third band, Multi Link Operation (MLO)and twice the bandwidth of single transmission channels.
New three-lane road
While Wi-Fi 6 used (like Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5) two bands, i.e. 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, the new standard gets an additional brand-new, hitherto unused 6 GHz area at its disposal. We can imagine that instead of a two-lane data highway, we have up to three lanes of traffic.
Higher frequencies mean higher throughput, but are also associated with lower permeability through obstacles, which, if we only had this band, could affect coverage. The additional high-speed turbo range will undoubtedly come in handy in home and office environments, where the distances separating WiFi Router 7 and a compatible network card in a computer or smartphone are relatively short and generally do not exceed the theoretical limit of 30m.
Multi Link Operation
It is true that the interim Wi-Fi 6E standard had the ability to use three bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz), but among the novelties of WiFi 7 is that the latest generation of wireless networks can use all three bands simultaneously for a single transmission (MLO mode). This means that the transmitted data will be as if scattered over three independent bands, each of which offers some bandwidth, giving a total of more "space" in the radio medium.
Wider channels - higher speed
The several-fold speedup in Wi-Fi 7 also comes from the fact that the new technology, in the 6 GHz band, uses 320 MHz wide channels, which is twice as wide as in Wi-Fi 6, not to mention earlier versions, such as Wi-Fi 4, where channels were 20 and 40 MHz wide.
Resistant to holes in the band
Wi-Fi 6 featured greater resistance to radio interference in the frequency range it uses, divided into channels. If interference happened in a given channel, for example, on a frequency located in the middle of that channel, the technology made it possible to limit the width of the spectrum used to the frequency where the interference did not occur, i.e. in our case by half. True, the bandwidth was drastically reduced in this way, but the transmission itself continued.
Wi-Fi 7 brings a more perfect solution, the so-called "punctured mode". Thanks to it, from the band in which the interference occurs, transmission is excluded locally (hence the name "puncture" - hole) only in the range of this disturbed frequency, which does not cause a significant reduction in transmission speed.
WiFi Applications 7
The application areas of the new generation of wireless network remain the same: it will work great in both home and office environments, offering higher and more stable transfers, especially over shorter distances between the Wi-Fi access point and end devices. The traditionally maintained WiFi 7 "downward" compatibility with older technologies will enable a smooth, successive transition to the new standard.
The answer to the statistical user's basic question "how to choose a router for your home" will therefore remain the same: when buying a new router, phone, or laptop, it is worth investing in a device that supports Wi-Fi 7.
As for FRITZ WiFi 7 routers, it is already appearing in the latest models of the devices, examples of which include FRITZ!Box 5690 Pro and 7690 for high-speed fiber and DSL connections, or FRITZ!Box 6670 Cable for cable networks.
