What is Wi-Fi 7? (& Why Your Next Router Should Have It)

this video was sponsored by qualcom Technologies [Music] [Applause] [Music] Inc I did a couple of videos a while back talking about Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E but now there's a new version of Wi-Fi and we're already starting to see it pop up on various routers and devices called Wi-Fi 7 and if all of these numbers of WiFi are confusing you I promise you're not alone so in this Dakota episode my explainer series here on the channel let's talk about what Wi-Fi 7 is what's difference between Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6 and 6E and what the real world benefits are and first let's start with the name Wi-Fi 7 is part of a relatively new naming structure from the Wi-Fi Alliance the industry body that tests and certifies Wi-Fi products to help people understand the different Wi-Fi standards Wi-Fi 7 is the name now for 802.11b where 6E was the name for 802.11 ax extension and six was 802.11 ax and so on and so [Music] on okay a quick recap of some of the more important features in Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E as they're here in Wi-Fi 7 but they've been improved upon now if you want a full breakdown of all of these I've left links below to the what is Wi-Fi 6 and what is Wi-Fi 6E videos that I did but for this video we'll quickly touch on the ones that are important for Wi-Fi 7 first we have muo which stands for multiple user multiple input multiple output and allows multiple clients on the network to send and receive data at the same time up to eight at once in Wi-Fi 6 then we have ofdma or orthagonal frequency division multiple access to allow for more devices to each receive and send data per transmission is this allows each packet being sent out on the network to contain data for multiple clients instead of having to send one out per client then we have 1024 Quang to allow more data to be sent per packet and it translates about 25% faster data transfers in Wi-Fi 6 over Wi-Fi 5 then there's Target wake time to reduce unnecessary Network transmissions by having devices specify when they'll be awake and transmit versus sleep and not which then frees up bandwidth for more important data instead and WPA 3 the latest security protocol and then Wi-Fi 6E just added much needed Spectrum in the form of the 6 GHz band now before 6E your Wi-Fi network would use one or both bands 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz sometimes your router would even display these as two separate networks but nowadays most newer routers will keep the network name the same and automatically decide which band to use for which device the difference between these bands for the most part is that 2.4 GHz has a lower top speed of about 8 gbits per second but for the range and 5 GHz has a higher top speed of about 2.8 gbits per second a lower range and it just isn't as good at penetrating walls and objects Wi-Fi 6E added the much less used 6 GHz into the mix as well thanks to the FCC freeing that up for Wi-Fi use not too long ago now that essentially krupal the amount of bandwidth that Wi-Fi devices can use as it adds 14 additional 80 MHz channels and 7 additional 160 MHz channels and while these are the same siiz channels as 5 GHz and that's why you have the same theoretical Max speeds you can still get much faster actual speeds than 5 GHz in most cases simply because these new channels just have we less congestion on them which also means that you'll get much better latency on 6 GHz as well congestion and latency on Wi-Fi channels is what causes those drops in speed as well as issues with your buffering in videos frame rate drops in games and dropped Zoom meetings and with that how does Wi-Fi 7 differ from Wi-Fi 6 and 6E well Wi-Fi 7 has a lot of the same features with some improvements to them but then it also adds some super useful new features as well firstly we have all of the features I mentioned for Wi-Fi 6 and 6E but for muo Wi-Fi 7 has 16 streams available versus the eight so more devices can communicate at once which means faster speed and less latency the 1024 quam has now been updated to 4K quam which just means even more data is being sent per packet which alone increases speeds by about 20% as well we also have the 6 GHz band from 6E but within 6E the widest Channel supported was 160 MHz in Wi-Fi 7 that is doubled to 320 MHz the larger the channel the more data it can transmit at a time so more speed all of that allow ows for more speed lower latency and better reliability but this new feature that I'm kind of excited about does even more for that and it's called mlo or multi-link operation now this feature again new to Wi-Fi 7 allows the router and devices to combine all of the frequencies 2.4 GHz 5 GHz and 6 GHz together into a single connection now before Wi-Fi 7 devices used to have to connect to one of these bands at a time on a fixed Channel within that band now a device can send and receive data on 2.4 4 GHz 5 GHz and 6 GHz all at the same time potentially meaning much wider channels allowing them to transmit even more data but also it can adjust what channels and what bands it's using to get the higher speed lower latency and better reliability dodging interference automatically so clever now the idea is that this will not only start to boost speeds lower latency and increase reliability as mentioned but it's also starting to prepare us for this future of over 1 gbit per second fiber optic networks that are starting to roll out I have 2 gbit per second fiber optic Network in my apartment now and was told by FiOS the company that installed it that 5 and 10 gbit plans are coming soon Wi-Fi 6E was basically necessary to see anything over 1 gbit per second consistently wirelessly and now Wi-Fi 7 is necessary to have the wireless experiences match those even higher incoming speeds wirelessly Qualcomm has also recently announced their own Qualcomm 10 gig fiber Gateway platform to be used in modems and routers that is purpose built for 10 GB per second fiber Broadband to be able to provide 10 GB per second performance to and throughout out the home it not only has architecture that's flexible and scalable for Broadband providers to offer 10 gig passive Optical Network Technologies and 10 GB per second ether DEET but it also has built-in support for open- Source software and middleware to enable a ton of new Smart Home applications powered by those new speeds and lower latency that will just come with 10 gbit per second fiber Broadband I was so excited when I got 2 GB per second speeds in my apartment I cannot wait for 10 gbits per second okay so what are the downsides to Wi-Fi 7 well again the 6 GHz frequency doesn't reach as far and it's not as good as penetrating objects and walls as 5 GHz is and even more so than 2.4 GHz but that's the same issue we had with Wi-Fi 6E and it just means that for the very best speeds you'll probably want to go for a mesh system as you'll need more nodes to cover as much of your space as possible in that fastest 6 GHz band another downside is the same with all new technology price Wi-Fi 7 router systems are generally a little bit more expensive than Wi-Fi 6 and 6E although even at the time I'm making this video I've seen a ton of Wi-Fi 7 systems out there that are not much more expensive and some even on comparable levels of pricing for some of the current Wi-Fi 6 and 6E routers out there I'll leave links below though to all of the ones that I have found if you're curious in the description below now the router I'm using here in this video is The tplink Deco be 33000 with qualcomm's networking Pro 1620 platform inside which enables quadband Wi-Fi 7 instead of just triband so we have 2.4 GHz 5 GHz and then two 6 GHz channels which means that you can use one as a dedicated back haul between the two mesh nodes for a super fast connection for the data between them and still have all three bands available from each node for client devices I'll leave a link below again if you're curious about this router and lastly is availability you will need a Wi-Fi 7 capable router and Wi-Fi 7 capable devices like laptops and phones Etc in order to take advantage of all of the features of Wi-Fi 7 you can't just update your stuff to get that but already we're starting to devices come with qualcomm's fastconnect 7800 with Wi-Fi 7 and high band simultaneous multi-link which allows devices to combine two 5 GHz or two 6 GHz bands together to achieve up to 5.8 GB per second speeds and much lower latency and it's especially important honestly in regions that haven't added 6 GHz yet so combining two 5 GHz bands can get you much faster speeds devices like the xiaomi 13 Pro the OnePlus 11 the Xperia 15 the Motorola Edge Plus and more and I'm sure we'll see it more and more in other Flagship devices down the road okay and there you go if you want to learn more about what Qualcomm is doing with Wi-Fi 7 check them out at the link below also let me know what you guys thought of this video If you enjoyed it I always appreciate hearing from you guys also check out the rest of the decoder series did a bunch of other explainer videos and the real world test series that I do here on the channel where we explore while we test out a device also if you're not already please subscribe and ding the Bell so you get notified when I do new videos but all right after all this I think I'm going to actually start googling when 10 gbit per second internet is going to arrive at my apartment good night

Channel: TheUnlockr

Views: 88,613

Keywords: wifi 7, wifi, wi-fi, wi-fi 7, what is wifi 7, what is wi-fi 7

Id: nIlFnksVqkY

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 17 2023