The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) announced the public release of Get Ready for Wi-Fi 7: Applying New Capabilities to the Key Use Cases, a report that explores how this new technology will transform how people worldwide live, work and play. The report is available as a free download from WBA.

Based on the IEEE 802.11be (Extreme High Throughput) standard, Wi-Fi 7 has a wide variety of advanced capabilities that will improve existing use cases or enable new ones that are not possible with existing wired and wireless technologies. The 43-page paper, led by WBA members Broadcom, CableLabs, Cisco and Intel, explores many of Wi-Fi 7’s major new capabilities and applications, such as:

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  • Double the bandwidth and three times the speed of Wi-Fi 6 
    Wi-Fi 7 supports channel widths up to 320 MHz, while Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 are limited to 160 MHz. It also supports 4k QAM, which is an upgrade over prior standards. With wider channels and 4K QAM capabilities, Wi-Fi 7 can deliver speeds over three times faster than Wi-Fi 6. This is critical for enabling whole-home multi-Gigabit Wi-Fi service.
  • Advanced support for latency-sensitive use cases 
    Wi-Fi 7 devices can use multi-link operation in the 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz bands to increase throughput by aggregating multiple links or to quickly move critical applications to the optimal band using seamless switching between links. Fast link switching allows Wi-Fi 7 devices to avoid interference and access Wi-Fi channels without delaying critical traffic. This and other new features also make Wi-Fi 7 ideal for immersive extended reality, augmented reality and virtual reality, online gaming and other consumer applications that require high throughput, low latency, minimal jitter and high reliability.

Wi-Fi 7 Industry Trials Program

The WBA is actively collaborating with its members to conduct field trials of these technologies in real-life Wi-Fi 7 networks. These trials are open to all interested industry players and are a crucial platform for mobile device and AP vendors, operators and service providers to collectively test Wi-Fi 7 capabilities in key deployments scenarios.

In these trials, participants will gain invaluable hands-on, real-world insights into deploying Wi-Fi 7 across operator, residential and enterprise networks. As with its Wi-Fi 6 trials, the WBA will share comprehensive reports that offer indispensable knowledge and serve as a reference for industry stakeholders.

Tiago Rodrigues, president and CEO, WBA, said, “Get Ready for Wi-Fi 7 showcases the revolutionary capabilities that will enable Wi-Fi 7 to help bridge the digital divide and enable new use cases across consumer, business, education, government, medical, industrial, hospitality, public venues and transportation. WBA and its members are once again leading the way in providing and educating the industry on the next generation of Wi-Fi 7 innovation.”