Navigating the Transition to Wi-Fi 7
How to optimize your installs with this new technology
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The world of Wi-Fi continues to push forward at a rapid pace. A few years ago, wireless networking technology went from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 and now we're quickly transitioning to Wi-Fi 7. The change from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 brought several improvements, and now custom integrators and their homeowner clients will be able to experience numerous more enhancements. Some chief benefits of Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) include even faster speeds, interference-free throughput to ensure those speeds are achieved, the ability to transmit more packets of data and capabilities to connect more devices and users. For now, we are only on the cusp of what is possible with Wi-Fi 7 as more product offerings catch up with the technology. Early adopters who are willing to spend more to upgrade their wireless networks will gain the initial experiences.
“While Wi-Fi 7 will offer higher speeds between wireless devices, increased efficiency and capacity and improved interference management, very few wireless devices today support Wi-Fi 7, especially IoT devices. The Internet connection also has to support those speeds to take advantage of them,” explains Lewis Donzis, CEO of PerfTech, which is the creator of the commercial-grade Island Router.
“However, Wi-Fi 7 is geared to make those enhancements available in the future both from a device perspective and a provider perspective.”
Donzis notes that the advantages of Wi-Fi 7 — by making wireless devices run faster and be able to take on more bandwidth-demanding apps — can cause one significant result: it places much more emphasis on the abilities of the router function.
“Most of today's home routers, even those that are wired, are not prepared for the extremely intensive applications expected to come down the road,” he says. Wi-Fi 7 is setting the foundation for the necessary bandwidth and throughput.
“While today's Wi-Fi routers in the home AV arena are making improvements in their wireless capabilities, few, if any, have a router function that can handle the speed and capacity requirements of a now more heavily loaded wireless component on the network,” he says.
“It will land on the integrator to find and install a router whose hardware and software can accommodate Wi-Fi 7 and have been designed for this scenario.”
“The main difference between Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 is higher speed and use of a wide open 6GHz channel,” notes Andrew Ward, business development manager for enterprise-level provider Access Networks.
“Each iteration of Wi-Fi is meant to solve a problem facing connectivity at the time and improve on the previous certification,” he comments.
“Wi-Fi 5 gave us faster transmission and a dedicated backhaul 5GHz band, resulting in better throughput. Wi-Fi 6 focused on connectivity, spectral efficiency, security and improved battery life, resulting in greater Wi-Fi stability and higher capacity.”
In accordance with the Wi-Fi Alliance, Wi-Fi 7 certified products must deliver the following characteristics, Ward details:
Bjørn Jensen, founder and CEO of network and cybersecurity specialist WhyReboot, elaborates on why “This is a huge upgrade compared to anything that has come out previously for multiple reasons.”
Not only does the spec pack even more data into each transmission, but it also includes a ton of additional spectrum available for communicating. This means a lot more channels and a lot less congestion, he enthuses.
“The 6GHz channel which has been approved for use by the Federal Communications Commision (FCC) allows for 60 channels (compared to the 11 channels in the 2.4GHz frequency). You can even make channels 320MHz wide, though in the real world that will be difficult to do with other networks broadcasting in the same space,” Jensen notes.
He calls MLO an exciting feature of Wi-Fi 7 because a device can now connect on multiple frequencies at once. “Not only does that help with performance, but it will also help when you reach the edge of what a higher frequency can travel and you can seamlessly maintain the connection on the lower frequency,” Jensen says.
He also elaborates on Puncturing as an extremely useful feature that helps alleviate an issue that's long plagued Wi-Fi where if there is some unknown device broadcasting on the same channel it creates co-channel interference.
“Sort of like someone yelling in the middle of a conference room making it hard to hear the presenter,” he says. “Puncturing allows for [cutting] through that to allow the rest of the channel to be used, recovering the channel space that would usually be dropped.”
Keith Nielsen, senior sales engineer at Netgear, notes that this workaround for channel interference involves taking the 5GHz and 6GHz channels and bonding them for higher throughput that enables sending and receiving data packets bi-directionally. That makes it more like real Ethernet where you've got bi-directional movement over a wire, but it's all wireless, he adds.
Similar to the conference room analogy, Nielsen likes to explain it with an experience we've all been through.
“It's kind of the analogy, you're going down the freeway with Wi-Fi 6, and the Volkswagen has a flat tire and the whole freeway stops, because that's your channel interference. With Wi-Fi 7, it doesn't care - it just runs over the Volkswagen,” he states. “If there's any channel interference, it does this channel mending type thing. It'll just go out and around and keep on going.”
Plus, that freeway will now be more akin to the German Autobahn thanks to the more wide-open 6GHz range and 320MHz channelization, Nielsen adds. It boosts the communication speeds from the router to the wireless Access Points (APs) needed to maintain that reliable and rapid transmission throughout a large residence inside and out.
“You were anywhere from about 1.8GB of throughput to right around 6GB of throughput with Wi-Fi 6. With Wi-Fi 7, you're at 18GB, so 10GB will be slow,” he says.
There are devices out now, such as one of his company's Wi-Fi 7 home routers, that capitalize on the technology's prowess. “It's 27 gig of throughput - so the speeds just go phenomenally quick.”
So what should a custom integrator specify when it comes to this new Wi-Fi horizon?
WhyReboot's Jensen offers an example of what a setup can look like for a fully Wi-Fi 7 system with 10 APs on just one network switch. “We're not even talking about connecting multiple switches with larger uplinks, just a switch to a gateway appliance,” he notes.
Switch: You'll need a switch with 10G access ports and 802.3bt power (90W per port).
Gateway appliance (router or firewall): As we haven't reached a point where residential Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are offering more than 10Gbps on the Wide-Area Network (WAN), we'll use that as the “best” for now.
Fiber module: Now because you need to connect this router to the switch at 10Gbps you need some transceiver modules, either Multi-Mode Fiber (MMF) or Single-Mode Fiber (SMF), but these are relatively inexpensive and don't add much to the cost of the system. That said, you will need to add a fiber module in the expansion port of the switch as it only comes with embedded 40/100G ports, which some routers do not support.
Access points: Indoor and outdoor wireless APs extend coverage inside and out of the home.
Of course, Jensen adds, there are other potential customer costs, which include licensing, extended service, transceiver modules, rackmount kit for the router and vital security services such as anti-malware.
Regarding wireless networks system design and implementation, Access Networks' Ward remarks that Wi-Fi 7 requires several changes in design and spacing.
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“Notably that Wi-Fi 7 access points need to be more visible and closer to one another for 6 GHz connectivity. This means more access points may be required for a project, with one potentially needed for every room in a space,” he says.
“Because of this, Wi-Fi 7 is more suited for commercial environments at this point. These environments tend to be more open and access point visibility is not as much of a concern compared to residential applications.”
Still, as with many commercial technologies and as outlined above, it won't be long before Wi-Fi 7 takes over the residential space as well - beginning with the early adopters and those who can afford the potentially pricy enhancements.
“With Wi-Fi 7, we'll see a split in our industry, and the kinds of luxury clientele we all have that usually ask for the best, not everyone will be able to afford it,” Jensen suggests. “Everyone will want to have the fastest speeds possible to play everyone's favorite video game and attempt to reach a higher score over their neighbors. They'll undoubtedly see the incredible results and request that for their next upgrade.”
