Certainly a cyclical upgrade. 7 may have better upgrade sales to recent generations (e.g. 6E) because of the feature set, but it will also be the obvious choice to people who are looking to upgrade because they are on older 6, 5, 4 devices. Why buy a 6E once you can buy a 7?
Wifi 6E is totally skippable. Wifi 7 brings quite a slew of new features (not only higher bandwidth) such as aggregating 5 GHz and 6 GHz simultaneously (maybe even 2.4 GHz too), which reduces latency and jitter; and other nice things.
I also have 1 Gigabit Internet: It depends how often you use your Wifi devices and how modern they are. I consume a lot of 4K devices on modern devices with Wifi 6 and 6e support. I also do a lot of remote work doing things like engineering, AI, 3D, and content creation on my M1 Max Laptop, iPad Pro, and iPhone.
Accordingly, I could not be in your position to have the privilege to wait. You would not get much ROI from your connection on such slow Wifi.
"The AP products support AFC in order to ensure that 6GHz range is not affected (the APs are mandated to receive regularly scheduled clearance from a central authority to prevent interference with 6 GHz spectrum users). Broadcom has applied to be an AFC operator and will offer AFC service with their chips. This will use Open AFC code."
So I guess this is how the wifi industry intends to solve the problem that even cheap consumer access points are good enough that they only get replaced when they stop working. They'll just turn off this service after N years and cripple all their older routers in the process.
Based on previous Internet of Shit Fuckery I'm guessing something like 5 years after release despite selling the model for at least 3 or maybe 4 years before discontinuing it.
My guess is that APs that don't receive a regularly scheduled clearance would have their transmit power (and thereby, range) reduced for the 6GHz channels - in that way, it would be just like how current Wi-Fi 6E routers operate (and this is a reason why there are no outdoor Wi-Fi 6E APs yet - because range is too low with the allowed power)
You mean like how consumer backlash to companies, including some of the largest in the world *cough*Google*cough* killing their existing internet of shit devices by turning off backend services has caused a backlash that stopped people from buying new IoS devices? 🤣🤣🤣
I would suspect that is for the flashier consumer devices, but also for status light rings like in the Ubiquiti AP's. I can quickly look at my AP in my home office and see that the AP is down or reconnecting instead of logging into the management interface. These types of devices also have the option of turning off the LED light sensitive areas.
802.11be is a huge step forward as it'll be able to pull off time sensitive networking (TSN 802.1Qbv) wirelessly. That is the functionality that'll provide the determinism. The downside is that to bridge that fully across a network, not only will a Wi-fi 7 router be needed but also TSN capable networking switches.
Urgh, why do they keep increasing the supported channel width, especially on consumer-grade routers/APs? Have they not learned the lessons from 2.4 GHz wireless, and the lack of non-overlapping channels?
Yes, it's great they made an extra 1.2 GHz of spectrum available in the 6 GHz range. But what's the point if they turn around and provide only 3 non-overlapping 320 MHz channels in that range?
The promise of 5 GHz providing a large number of 20/40/80 MHz channels available has gone the way of the Dodo now that 160/320 MHz channels are supported. Because you *know* the crappy ISP-provided routers are going to use the biggest channel width possible *by default* and no one is going to change it. Anyone living in apartment/condo/townhouse complexes is going to find their Wifi 6/7 networks working no better than the Wifi 3/4 networks due to congestion. :( (Yes, 5/6 GHz doesn't propagate as far as 2.4 GHz does, but in cramped buildings it's still going to be a mess of 320 MHz channels broadcast at max power.)
I would agree except for one important point--the 6Ghz spectrum is extremely impeded by walls. So much so that the recommended deployment plan is to have an AP in nearly every room because the penetration through obstacles is so poor. This makes deployment more difficult, but in many areas becomes a Feature as the interference is much less of a concern and you can actually take advantage of that wide channel bandwidth. New home builds should be putting a Cat6e jack in every single room if they want to future proof at all. Cheap 6Ghz APs in all the important high bandwidth rooms (Roku TVs, Playstations, laptops, etc.) and 5Ghz for coverage in the non-AP rooms creates a pretty decent deployment. In busy areas, 2.4GHz is basically unusable.
I think you're confusing 6GHz with 60GHz. 60's MMwave and is in-room only. The 6ghz band is adjacent to 5ghz band and only has marginally worse penetration as a result.
60 is purely line of sight (I used to build 60GHz P-MP radios for a failed wireless broadband startup). I'd have to look at 6Ghz again, but I was surprised at the attenuation inside a standard American home due to walls, bookshelves, cabinets, etc. It was more than just marginally worse than 5.
...or if you're running that many jacks in a new home... you could just plug in all your high bandwidth devices and have a foolproof, consistent experience.
Not likely to be an issue. 1) 6GHz band range is MASSIVE, literally more than double that of 5+2.4 GHz, and can fit 7 channels of 160 MHz. 2) The range for 6GHz is also very limited through walls so you’ll likely not see many nearby 6 gHz networks (fewer than 5 GHz) 3) Most importantly, WiFi 7 will support non-contiguous bands/channels so as long as there is a total of 320 MHz free anywhere in the entire 2.4+5+6 GHz bands, you can link them together dynamically. You are extremely unlikely to live next to 10 people actively saturating all bands.
I work on a network in a large city and the APs on upper floors detect hundreds of foreign APs. I looked at one the other day that had 268 neighbors. I'm always happy to see advancements, but there will continue to be problematic areas in dense deployments. It will continue to get better as older clients and APs are turned off.
1. 7x 160 MHz channels is only 3x 320 MHz channels, which is the same issue we already face with 2.4 GHz only having 3 channels.
2. The range isn't as short as you think it is. We live on a cul-de-sac, we're the corner house, so only 1 close neighbour (sharing a fence). The rest are either across the street, or around the corner of the cul-de-sac (6 houses on our side of the street, 3 across the street). My APs can detect 4 separate 5 GHz networks, each using 80 MHz channels. Signal ranges from -90 dBm to -61 dBm.
Image what that would look like in an apartment building where you can have 20-50 separate units with 100-odd feet of your living room.
3. That will require all Wifi 7 clients, and (most likely) won't be usable if there are Wifi 5 or 6 clients connected to the AP, so will be of limited use for the next decade or so.
I wish I could post a screenshot. I live in an apartment. I was able to reach over 150 5GHz wifi access points from my room. It was so many, I had to map them out on a spreadsheet. There was even someone who was running a 20MHz 5GHz AP. 2.4GHz was a similar bloodbath. A few of the 2.4GHz APs were actually printers, for some reason. I have to assume printers are running those wifi APs for the purpose of enabling direct wireless printing.
I get that they want/need bigger numbers to attract the bigger is better consumers but is it just me or are all of those speed enhancements pretty much never going to apply so the theoretical best case numbers will never actually be achievable.
Really wide channels are only going to be useful if living in the middle of no where with no one else around and I wouldn't be surprised if many client devices didn't even bother supporting the widest channels.
16 spatial streams? Not happening in a client device. We are already seeing things go from 3 streams down to 2 streams because more streams = more antennas.
4kQAM. Not going to happen, especially on the extra wide channels. You need very little interference to make 4kQAM work and extra wide channels are more likely to see lots of interference.
Now there might be some benefit in aggregate performance if the router supports multiple spatial and MU-MIMO allowing it to talk to multiple clients at once in different spatial streams but the extra wide channels and 4kQAM aren't really going to apply.
The low latency stuff and Multi-link stuff actually looks useful and more likely to be beneficial to uses but it doesn't give the big number to advertise so it not as prominent.
What we need is to move some of 5G FR2's Spectrum over to WiFi standard and use it for local high bandwidth Access Point in each room.
Given that 26 GHz & up have a hard time penetrating anything physical and has incredibly short range & high bandwidth, it's the perfect application for room level Mesh Network Access Points.
Just deploy one near every light socket on the ceiling and it can cover most rooms with high bandwidth sourced from the Router.
All y'all focusing on the number of available channels seem to be ignorant of the fact that WiFi6 did a lot to improve efficiency in areas of high channel overlap.
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Cryio - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
I have a 1 Gbps connection, up until 2020, I had a 2.4 GHz, WiFi 4, 100 Mbps router.I know have a WiFi 6 phone and a 5 GHz 1.2 Gbps capable WiFi 6 router.
We have 6E and now WiFi 7. I'm personally in no hurry.
DougMcC - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
Certainly a cyclical upgrade. 7 may have better upgrade sales to recent generations (e.g. 6E) because of the feature set, but it will also be the obvious choice to people who are looking to upgrade because they are on older 6, 5, 4 devices. Why buy a 6E once you can buy a 7?heffeque - Wednesday, April 13, 2022 - link
Wifi 6E is totally skippable.Wifi 7 brings quite a slew of new features (not only higher bandwidth) such as aggregating 5 GHz and 6 GHz simultaneously (maybe even 2.4 GHz too), which reduces latency and jitter; and other nice things.
lilkwarrior - Thursday, April 21, 2022 - link
I also have 1 Gigabit Internet: It depends how often you use your Wifi devices and how modern they are. I consume a lot of 4K devices on modern devices with Wifi 6 and 6e support. I also do a lot of remote work doing things like engineering, AI, 3D, and content creation on my M1 Max Laptop, iPad Pro, and iPhone.Accordingly, I could not be in your position to have the privilege to wait. You would not get much ROI from your connection on such slow Wifi.
lilkwarrior - Thursday, April 21, 2022 - link
I have 2 Wifi 6 and 1 Wifi 6E router meshed FWIW.DanNeely - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
"The AP products support AFC in order to ensure that 6GHz range is not affected (the APs are mandated to receive regularly scheduled clearance from a central authority to prevent interference with 6 GHz spectrum users). Broadcom has applied to be an AFC operator and will offer AFC service with their chips. This will use Open AFC code."So I guess this is how the wifi industry intends to solve the problem that even cheap consumer access points are good enough that they only get replaced when they stop working. They'll just turn off this service after N years and cripple all their older routers in the process.
Based on previous Internet of Shit Fuckery I'm guessing something like 5 years after release despite selling the model for at least 3 or maybe 4 years before discontinuing it.
ganeshts - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
That would invite too much consumer backlash.My guess is that APs that don't receive a regularly scheduled clearance would have their transmit power (and thereby, range) reduced for the 6GHz channels - in that way, it would be just like how current Wi-Fi 6E routers operate (and this is a reason why there are no outdoor Wi-Fi 6E APs yet - because range is too low with the allowed power)
DanNeely - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
You mean like how consumer backlash to companies, including some of the largest in the world *cough*Google*cough* killing their existing internet of shit devices by turning off backend services has caused a backlash that stopped people from buying new IoS devices? 🤣🤣🤣cosmotic - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
Is that RGB LED block for status LEDs or like custom color animation flashy glitz?Ninhalem - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
I would suspect that is for the flashier consumer devices, but also for status light rings like in the Ubiquiti AP's. I can quickly look at my AP in my home office and see that the AP is down or reconnecting instead of logging into the management interface. These types of devices also have the option of turning off the LED light sensitive areas.Kevin G - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
802.11be is a huge step forward as it'll be able to pull off time sensitive networking (TSN 802.1Qbv) wirelessly. That is the functionality that'll provide the determinism. The downside is that to bridge that fully across a network, not only will a Wi-fi 7 router be needed but also TSN capable networking switches.Jp7188 - Wednesday, April 13, 2022 - link
I'm super excited for what this means for VR. Existing wireless VR hardware is extremely limited.phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
Urgh, why do they keep increasing the supported channel width, especially on consumer-grade routers/APs? Have they not learned the lessons from 2.4 GHz wireless, and the lack of non-overlapping channels?Yes, it's great they made an extra 1.2 GHz of spectrum available in the 6 GHz range. But what's the point if they turn around and provide only 3 non-overlapping 320 MHz channels in that range?
The promise of 5 GHz providing a large number of 20/40/80 MHz channels available has gone the way of the Dodo now that 160/320 MHz channels are supported. Because you *know* the crappy ISP-provided routers are going to use the biggest channel width possible *by default* and no one is going to change it. Anyone living in apartment/condo/townhouse complexes is going to find their Wifi 6/7 networks working no better than the Wifi 3/4 networks due to congestion. :( (Yes, 5/6 GHz doesn't propagate as far as 2.4 GHz does, but in cramped buildings it's still going to be a mess of 320 MHz channels broadcast at max power.)
supercaliber - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
I would agree except for one important point--the 6Ghz spectrum is extremely impeded by walls. So much so that the recommended deployment plan is to have an AP in nearly every room because the penetration through obstacles is so poor. This makes deployment more difficult, but in many areas becomes a Feature as the interference is much less of a concern and you can actually take advantage of that wide channel bandwidth. New home builds should be putting a Cat6e jack in every single room if they want to future proof at all. Cheap 6Ghz APs in all the important high bandwidth rooms (Roku TVs, Playstations, laptops, etc.) and 5Ghz for coverage in the non-AP rooms creates a pretty decent deployment. In busy areas, 2.4GHz is basically unusable.DanNeely - Wednesday, April 13, 2022 - link
I think you're confusing 6GHz with 60GHz. 60's MMwave and is in-room only. The 6ghz band is adjacent to 5ghz band and only has marginally worse penetration as a result.supercaliber - Tuesday, April 19, 2022 - link
60 is purely line of sight (I used to build 60GHz P-MP radios for a failed wireless broadband startup). I'd have to look at 6Ghz again, but I was surprised at the attenuation inside a standard American home due to walls, bookshelves, cabinets, etc. It was more than just marginally worse than 5.Jp7188 - Wednesday, April 13, 2022 - link
...or if you're running that many jacks in a new home... you could just plug in all your high bandwidth devices and have a foolproof, consistent experience.DougMcC - Tuesday, April 12, 2022 - link
Haven't you heard? We're all moving out of the cities and telecommuting. No more cramped apartments!shadowx360 - Wednesday, April 13, 2022 - link
Not likely to be an issue.1) 6GHz band range is MASSIVE, literally more than double that of 5+2.4 GHz, and can fit 7 channels of 160 MHz.
2) The range for 6GHz is also very limited through walls so you’ll likely not see many nearby 6 gHz networks (fewer than 5 GHz)
3) Most importantly, WiFi 7 will support non-contiguous bands/channels so as long as there is a total of 320 MHz free anywhere in the entire 2.4+5+6 GHz bands, you can link them together dynamically. You are extremely unlikely to live next to 10 people actively saturating all bands.
Jp7188 - Wednesday, April 13, 2022 - link
I work on a network in a large city and the APs on upper floors detect hundreds of foreign APs. I looked at one the other day that had 268 neighbors. I'm always happy to see advancements, but there will continue to be problematic areas in dense deployments. It will continue to get better as older clients and APs are turned off.phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, April 13, 2022 - link
1. 7x 160 MHz channels is only 3x 320 MHz channels, which is the same issue we already face with 2.4 GHz only having 3 channels.2. The range isn't as short as you think it is. We live on a cul-de-sac, we're the corner house, so only 1 close neighbour (sharing a fence). The rest are either across the street, or around the corner of the cul-de-sac (6 houses on our side of the street, 3 across the street). My APs can detect 4 separate 5 GHz networks, each using 80 MHz channels. Signal ranges from -90 dBm to -61 dBm.
Image what that would look like in an apartment building where you can have 20-50 separate units with 100-odd feet of your living room.
3. That will require all Wifi 7 clients, and (most likely) won't be usable if there are Wifi 5 or 6 clients connected to the AP, so will be of limited use for the next decade or so.
jeremyshaw - Sunday, April 17, 2022 - link
I wish I could post a screenshot. I live in an apartment. I was able to reach over 150 5GHz wifi access points from my room. It was so many, I had to map them out on a spreadsheet. There was even someone who was running a 20MHz 5GHz AP. 2.4GHz was a similar bloodbath. A few of the 2.4GHz APs were actually printers, for some reason. I have to assume printers are running those wifi APs for the purpose of enabling direct wireless printing.kpb321 - Thursday, April 14, 2022 - link
I get that they want/need bigger numbers to attract the bigger is better consumers but is it just me or are all of those speed enhancements pretty much never going to apply so the theoretical best case numbers will never actually be achievable.Really wide channels are only going to be useful if living in the middle of no where with no one else around and I wouldn't be surprised if many client devices didn't even bother supporting the widest channels.
16 spatial streams? Not happening in a client device. We are already seeing things go from 3 streams down to 2 streams because more streams = more antennas.
4kQAM. Not going to happen, especially on the extra wide channels. You need very little interference to make 4kQAM work and extra wide channels are more likely to see lots of interference.
Now there might be some benefit in aggregate performance if the router supports multiple spatial and MU-MIMO allowing it to talk to multiple clients at once in different spatial streams but the extra wide channels and 4kQAM aren't really going to apply.
The low latency stuff and Multi-link stuff actually looks useful and more likely to be beneficial to uses but it doesn't give the big number to advertise so it not as prominent.
Kamen Rider Blade - Sunday, April 17, 2022 - link
What we need is to move some of 5G FR2's Spectrum over to WiFi standard and use it for local high bandwidth Access Point in each room.Given that 26 GHz & up have a hard time penetrating anything physical and has incredibly short range & high bandwidth, it's the perfect application for room level Mesh Network Access Points.
Just deploy one near every light socket on the ceiling and it can cover most rooms with high bandwidth sourced from the Router.
easp - Tuesday, April 19, 2022 - link
All y'all focusing on the number of available channels seem to be ignorant of the fact that WiFi6 did a lot to improve efficiency in areas of high channel overlap.FXi - Thursday, April 28, 2022 - link
Crickets from Qualcomm?