- What is wifi7?
WiFi 7 (Wi-Fi 7) is the next-generation Wi-Fi standard to be launched, also known as IEEE 802.11be — extremely high throughput (EHT).
Based on Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 7 introduces technologies such as 320 MHz bandwidth, 4096-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), multiple resource unit (MRU), and multi-link operation (MLO). Drawing on these cutting-edge technologies, Wi-Fi 7 delivers a higher data transmission rates and lower latency than Wi-Fi 6. Wi-Fi 7 is expected to support a throughput of up to 23 Gbps, about three times that of Wi-Fi 6.
- What is wifi6?
WiFi6 (802.11ax) is the latest standard of WiFi technology. It is an improvement on the previous generation WiFi5 (802.11ac) standard. It is mainly built to improve the Internet speed, transmission efficiency and reduce network congestion in an environment with a large number of devices, so as to improve the user’s Internet experience.
Like the previously released WIFI technology standards, WiFi6 is also compatible with previous standards. Any terminal device that can connect to WiFi can access the WiFi6 network.
Before we dive into the details of these Wi-Fi standards, here is a brief comparison of the three:
- what is wifi5
WiFi 5 is the 802.11ac wireless networking standard that was released in late 2013. Wi-Fi 802.11ac is also known as Wi-Fi 5. 802.11ac is the most common wireless standard today, as most routers sold in the last few years are compatible with 802.11ac. Just like the 802.11n before it, this standard supports MU-MIMO, but it can provide a maximum data transfer speed of up to 2.3 Gbps. The 802.11ac standard only works on the 5 GHz band, but most wireless routers that support it also support the 802.11n standard on the 2.4 GHz band.
| Name | Wi-Fi 5 | Wi-Fi 6 | Wi-Fi 6E | Wi-Fi 7 |
| IEEE | 802.11ac | 802.11ax | 802.11ax | 802.11be |
| Release Year | 2014 | 2019 | 2020 | 2024 |
| Frequency Band | 5 GHz | 2.4 GHz | 2.4 GHz | 2.4 GHz |
| 5 GHz | 5 GHz | 5 GHz | ||
| 6 GHz | 6 GHz | |||
| Bandwidth（MHz） | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |
| 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | |
| 80 | 80 | 80 | 80 | |
| 80+80 | 80+80 | 80+80 | 80+80 | |
| 160 | 160 | 160 | 160 | |
| 320 | ||||
| Reuse | OFDM | OFDMA | OFDMA | OFDMA |
| Modulation | 256QAM | 1024QAM | 1024QAM | 4096QAM |
| Antenna | DL MU-MIMO, 4 x 4 | DL + UL MU-MIMO, 8 x 8 | DL + UL MU-MIMO, 8 x 8 | DL + UL MU-MIMO,8 x 8 |
| Security | WPA2 | WPA3 | WPA3 | WPA3 |
| Key Features | 40MHz | TWT, BSS coloring, beamforming | TWT, BSS coloring, beamforming | MLO, Multi-RU Punch-through |
| Maximum Data rate | 3.5Gbps | 9.6Gbps | 9.6Gbps | 46.1Gbps |
|
Comparison of Wi-Fi5 and Wi-Fi6 data |
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| Name | Wi-Fi5 | Wi-Fi6 | |
| Protocol | 802.11.ac | 802.11.ax | |
| Wave1 | Wave2 | ||
| Year | 2013 | 2016 | 2018 |
| Frequency band | 5GHz | 2.4GHz/5GHz | |
| Maximum bandwidth | 80MHz | 160MHz | 160MHz |
| Highest modulation | 256QAM | 1024Mbps | |
| Single stream bandwidth | 433Mbps | 867Mbps | 1201Mbps |
| Maximum bandwidth | 3466Mbps | 6933Mbps | 9.6Gbps |
| Maximum spatial flow | 8*8 | 8*8 | |
| MU-MIMO | Not supported | Downside | Up/Downside |
| OFDMA | Not supported | Not supported | Up/Downside |
- New Features of Wi-Fi 7 Technology
Wi-Fi 7 has significant improvements compared to Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 5 in terms of performance:
Wi-Fi 7 has a throughput speed that is about 2.4 times faster than Wi-Fi 6 and about 4.8 times faster than Wi-Fi 6. The maximum theoretical data transfer rate of Wi-Fi 6 is about 9.6 Gbps, while Wi-Fi 7 is about 46.1 Gbps, and the bandwidth is also twice that of Wi-Fi 6 (320 MHz channel vs. 160 MHz channel of Wi-Fi 6). Combining these data, it can be said that Wi-Fi 7 is almost 13 times faster than Wi-Fi 5.
- Wi-Fi 7 can cover three frequency bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz), making full use of spectrum resources.
- Based on the IEEE 802.11be standard, Wi-Fi 7 achieves extremely high throughput (EHT) and reduces latency by nearly 100 times compared to the Wi-Fi 6 standard.
Wi-Fi 7 uses quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), which uses radio frequency waves to send and receive data. The higher the degree of modulation, the greater the ability to transmit information. Wi-Fi 7 supports 4K-QAM, while Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 5 support 1024-QAM and 256-QAM, respectively.
Among these improvements, multi-link operation (MLO) is probably the most important one. This feature allows Wi-Fi 7-supported devices to establish connections with other devices on different frequency bands and multiple channels at the same time. Therefore, Wi-Fi 7 not only has wider channels (320 MHz), but also can use multiple channels at the same time.
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