Wi-Fi 7 will deliver up to five times the maximum data rate of Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi’s current operative.
But wider channels and faster modulation may not even be the most important aspects of the new standard. Wi-Fi 7 will introduce the concept of Multi-Link Operation, or MLO – considered a very big deal in the world of Wi-Fi technology.
MLO is something akin to carrier aggregation in mobile, where devices operate on multiple channels at the same time. But MLO in Wi-Fi 7 is also more complex because of its various operational modes designed to serve a variety of new use cases.
MLO will not just boost speed but vastly improve reliability and latency, too. For example: Imagine using different channels to transmit the same packets to create deterministic, high QoS services in factories and for other industrial or mission-critical applications.
Similarly, MLO can be used to guarantee low latency by making use of multiple bands at the same time.
Experts in this field believe different MLO implementation options are possible. For example, multi-link single radio (MLSR) MLO’s may be able to RX and TX over one radio at a time. This can lead to enhanced MLSR (eMLSR) with a reduced function radio to choose best link.
Non-simultaneous TX and RX multi-link multi radio MLOs are expected to simultaneously RX and TX over two or more radios, but only under certain constraints such as frequency separation, aligned TX/RX.
Wi-Fi 7 is expected to build on Wi-Fi 6/6E. This necessitates the opening of the entire 1200 MHz of the 6 GHz band for unlicensed use.
Video streaming, video/voice conferencing, wireless gaming, real-time collaboration, cloud/edge computing, industrial IoT, immersive AR/VR, and interactive telemedicine are just a few of the areas that will benefit from Wi-Fi 7, which is expected to be available commercially in 2024.
Want to learn more? Tonex offers Wi-Fi training including Introduction to 802.11be, WiFi 7 Training, a 2-day technical course covering 802.11be amendment. 802.11be training, designated as Wi-Fi 7, is the next significant milestone in the Wi-Fi long-term success story providing extremely high throughput and supporting real-time applications.
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