What is Wi-Fi 7?

Summary

• Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) offers faster speeds and more efficient use of available spectrum compared to Wi-Fi 6E, with up to 36Gbps of bandwidth and 5.8Gbps deliverable to devices.
• Wi-Fi 7 uses technology improvements such as Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and Multi-link operation (MLO) to increase data capacity and improve latency, making it more suitable for increased internet usage in households.
• While Wi-Fi 7 devices are already available, widespread adoption will take time. Early adopters can enjoy the benefits of the less crowded 6GHz spectrum, but Wi-Fi 6E and even Wi-Fi 6 devices can still benefit from the improved efficiency of Wi-Fi 7.

So much of our lives takes place on the internet that it’s no surprise when the companies behind our Wi-Fi race towards the next generation of connectivity, called Wi-Fi 7. It does more than just cram more speed into the same spectrum we’ve been using for years. Wi-Fi 7 makes better use of the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz spectrum to deliver higher top speeds, lower latency, and more efficient use of the available bandwidth.

A few Wi-Fi 7 devices have started to show up on the scene from phone makers like Google and OnePlus. Several Wi-Fi 7 routers and mesh kits are also already available, although we're still far from widespread adoption. But all the devices have one thing in common: they're fast. The jump between Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 didn't feel huge, but the gains are much bigger when moving from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 7. This is important as internet service providers are finally starting to offer multi-gig internet service to residential customers.

What is Wi-Fi 7?

Wi-Fi 6E introduced the world to 6GHz Wi-Fi using Wi-Fi 6 technology and the results have been good with the vast reserves of spectrum helping users to avoid wireless congestion. That being said, Wi-Fi 6E didn't do anything to improve performance at 2.4GHz or 5GHz over Wi-Fi 6.

Wi-Fi 7, or 802.11be, takes Wi-Fi a step forward with several key technology improvements. First and foremost, Wi-Fi 7 routers are able to use 320MHz wide channels at 6GHz compared to 160MHz with Wi-Fi 6E. As shown by Intel, Wi-Fi 7 routers will have up to 36Gbps of bandwidth at their disposal with up to 5.8Gbps deliverable to devices like PCs. Wi-Fi 6 and 6E, on the other hand, top out at 2.4Gbps per device.

Wi-Fi 7 is largely about making the most efficient use of the available spectrum, so there’s as little waste as possible.

These speeds may seem like overkill, but our needs will continue to grow as the cloud becomes more integrated into our workflows and everyday life. Realistically, a reliable internet connection around 1Gbps is more than enough for most homes, and just about any of the best Wi-Fi routers will have the speed to handle it. That said, a multi-gig connection could be worth it if you're backing up or downloading a lot of data, or you have a lot of users in your home.

The way things are going, it's not unreasonable to think that an entire family could be using their home connection for work and school during the day while streaming and gaming through data at night. Fortunately, Wi-Fi 7 has a few tricks up its sleeve to deal with this increase in users, starting with Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM).

QAM increases the amount of data that can be squeezed into a band by modulating the signal. Wi-Fi 6 supports 1024-QAM compared to 256-QAM on Wi-Fi 5. Wi-Fi 7 takes this up to 4096-QAM, or 4K-QAM, making even more efficient use of the available spectrum. This didn’t come cheap and requires beamforming for it to work, but the work was worth it with much higher throughput using the same spectrum as Wi-Fi 6.

Multi-link operation (MLO) allows the Wi-Fi client to connect to multiple bands at once, which can improve latency if one band becomes congested and can also improve speed. For example, a Wi-Fi 7-capable phone using MLO can connect to both the 5GHz and 6GHz band at once, so it can distribute resources as needed. As we saw in our TP-Link Archer BE800 review, both Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 devices can connect to the MLO network, but Wi-Fi 6E devices can only connect to one band at a time.

Multi Resource Units (Multi-RU) are able to take advantage of unused portions of channels. Before, if any portion of a channel was in use, then the entire channel was unusable by another device. Multi-RU allows you to use multiple partial channels together. If 40MHz of a 320MHz channel is being used, for example, Multi-RU Puncturing allows the remaining 280MHz to be used for something else.

All of this and more comes together to make Wi-Fi 7 faster than Wi-Fi 6E using the same spectrum. Wi-Fi 7 is largely about making the most efficient use of the available spectrum, so there’s as little waste as possible.

When will Wi-Fi 7 be available?

Wi-Fi 7 is already included in some newer Android devices such as the Google Pixel 8, OnePlus 11, and ROG Phone 7 Ultimate. Laptops and desktops with Wi-Fi 7 have also started to trickle out with cards like the Intel BE200. That also means you can upgrade your desktop PC and some laptops to support Wi-Fi 7. Just make sure you're running a supported operating system; Intel only offers drivers for Windows 11.

Routers are also available from multiple manufacturers, generally targeting high-end users. The TP-Link Deco BE85, for example, is a tri-band router with a 12-stream BE22000 wireless setup. The fastest Wi-Fi 6E routers topped out at AX16000 for example. Besides that, the system support 10Gbps networking with both 10Gbps Ethernet and SFP+ support. While cheaper Wi-Fi 7 routers are making their way to market, they'll still be more expensive than a fast Wi-Fi 6E router, which is still overkill for the vast majority of users.

Mesh systems can get more immediate gains from Wi-Fi 7 since the backhaul connecting the mesh nodes cuts into the speed available for clients. With so much speed on tap, a clever Wi-Fi 7 mesh system like the Eero Max 7 can utilize both 5GHz and 6GHz bands to link its mesh nodes. Still, other mesh router systems could choose to do things differently as Netgear has gone with a dedicated 5GHz band for its Orbi 970 series. With its setup, Netgear's 240MHz band has 8.6Gbps of bandwidth for its backhaul without borrowing any capacity from its other bands.

It will be years before most people have upgraded to devices that can use Wi-Fi 7, but that also means that early adopters will have access to the nearly vacant 6GHz spectrum while most people are still sharing 5GHz. In my home, for example, I can see multiple 2.4GHz and 5GHz signals from my neighbors, but the only 6GHz signal is coming from me.

Mvoing to 6GHz also means that users can remove some traffic from 5GHz, potentially improving speeds for older Wi-Fi 6 devices that can’t be upgraded, like the PS5. That being said, for most people, 5GHz still provides all the speed they need. If you’re still ready to move to Wi-Fi 7, routers and mesh systems are already available and upgrades are ready for PCs. And if you skipped Wi-Fi 6E, you can get more out of your Wi-Fi 6E devices as well.