The biggest pain point of Wi-Fi in the past: finally solved by Wi-Fi 7

I have to say that the guy who named the 802.11ax protocol as WiFi 6.

Must be a genius! ! !

Because if it weren’t for those people who tinker with these things every day.

Who knows what these protocols are, 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11ax, and 802.11be, and who is in front and who is behind. . .

Not like it’s been changed now.

WiFi 4, WiFi 5, WiFi 6, WiFi 6E, WiFi 7. . .

You see, this clear naming is more than a beautiful thing.

Hey wait, I just bowed my head and picked up a chalk, why has this WiFi iterated to 7?

I feel that when I bought a router a few days ago, I felt that the manufacturer still used WiFi 6 support as a slogan. . .

Sure enough, this new name was used. . . Although the iterative relationship between each generation is more clearly seen.

But with this technological update, the sense of urgency to be “eliminated” was immediately arranged.

So the question is, is this WiFi 7 the best?

How many surprises will it bring us?

>/ The first thing to do is to get up soon

As a new generation of WiFi standard, it goes without saying that it has higher speed and lower latency.

If this improvement is not obvious, it will be too contemptible for the big guys on IEEE (WiFi 7 is also called IEEE802.11be).

Here Tony checked some information a little, and according to the theoretical technical indicators of WiFi 7, I will calculate it for you to see what level its theoretical rate can run to.

If Tony’s calculation is incorrect, then friends are welcome to correct them in the comment area.

First of all, this time WiFi 7 can support up to 4096 QAM (which can be understood as an increase in the signal density of transmission), which is about 20% higher than the 1024 QAM of WiFi 6.

Compared with WiFi 6, WiFi 7 can also support 6 Ghz, and the maximum bandwidth it can provide has been increased from 160 MHz to 320 MHz. In theory, the transmission speed can be directly doubled.

WiFi 7 can also support up to 16 antennas to send and 16 antennas to receive signals (16 x 16), which is twice as much as the previous generation’s standard 8 antennas to send and 8 antennas to receive.

After such a hasty calculation, if the above three indicators can be filled, in theory, the maximum rate of WiFi 7 can run to:

9.6 Gbps x 1.2 x 2 x 2 = 46 Gbps

Like Tony needs a Genshin every time he tests a new device, if the office with bad reviews is equipped with a full set of WiFi 7 networks.

The time required to download a 13GB Genshin Impact may only take 2.26 seconds. . .

Well, in theory. . .

>/ This time WiFi is a little smarter

Don’t look at the theoretical speed calculated above so fast, we have a steelyard in our hearts, and the theoretical speed can only be regarded as the theoretical speed.

Looking at how good WiFi 6 was back then, it supports up to 9.6 Gbps, but there are not many people who can run to this speed now, and it is not an exaggeration to make a discount.

How much can actually run out depends on the broadband speed of your home and the complexity of the nearby network environment. . .

Same goes for WiFi 7.

However, although the theoretical rate cannot be reached, the network experience improvement brought by WiFi 6 to us is real.

A large part of this is because WiFi 6 supports dual-band signals for the first time.

What is a dual-band signal? When many friends turn on their WiFi, they may find a small problem.

How can this make two WiFi with the same name but different suffixes?

That’s right, this is the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequency bands supported by WiFi 6, so why does this make us surf the Internet happier?

Tony took his own home as an example, opened the WiFi channel map and saw that the frequency band above 2.4GHz was fully occupied.

Even a person who doesn’t understand anything can also feel the congestion of the network from this picture.

But switching to the 5 GHz band looks much cooler

Here we add a little knowledge point. Generally speaking, the larger the number on the frequency band, the faster the signal communication, but the weaker the anti-interference ability of the signal.

That is to say, once the indoor terrain is complicated (with many walls), the signal strength of 5 GHz will be greatly weakened.

Although WiFi 6 can support 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, its switching between these two frequency bands is not very smart.

For example, if you connect WiFi 6 next to the router in the living room, the system assigns you the 5 GHz band because there is no interference at this time.

When you walk to the bedroom, as there are more and more walls, the signal gets worse and worse, until the 5 GHz can’t hold up, and the phone can automatically switch to 2.4 GHz.

Looks pretty smart, if it were the other way around. . .

The phone does not actively switch from 2.4 GHz to 5 GHz.

So, under the WiFi 6 protocol, although the network speed is greatly improved through the 5 GHz frequency band.

But it lacks a flexible and intelligent scheduling model to connect them together.

In most cases, you still have to separate the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands and connect manually according to your needs.

When it comes to the frequency band that WiFi 7 can support, it can support 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz at the same time (6 GHz has not yet been approved in China), these three frequency bands.

Notice! This is somewhat different from WiFi 6, which is supported at the same time.

This means that this time WiFi 7 can support the automatic switching of these three frequency bands!

It can automatically swing the signal to the appropriate frequency band according to the strength of the signal.

It can also achieve “self” load balancing, using its own multi-channel advantages to transmit data concurrently.

This means that the problem of passing the WiFi 6 test has been solved at once.

>/ Wisdom is full in complex environments

Not only does the frequency band for receiving signals support more, but WiFi 7 also optimizes support for multiple APs. (We can roughly understand that it can support multiple routers)

This is a very interesting feature.

Due to the power limitation of a single router, the coverage of the signal is very limited.

This is also the reason why sometimes only one router is installed at home, and there is no way to achieve whole-house signal coverage.

In larger scenarios such as companies or exhibitions, if you want to obtain a large-scale stable signal, it is generally achieved through AC + AP or MESH networking.

That is, the use of complex network nodes to provide huge coverage.

But doing so also has certain downsides.

In the previous standard of WiFi 7, each AP cannot cooperate with each other, but “fight each other”, and a mobile phone can only establish communication with one AP at the same time.

When you go from “AP 1” to “AP 2”, when the system detects that the signal is weakened, it will kick you off the line from “AP 1” first, and then go to AP “2” ” to establish communication.

Although with the help of WiFi fast roaming protocol (802.11k/v/r), it can bring us a nearly seamless AP switching experience.

But there will inevitably be a momentary lag.

With WiFi 7, the signal input of multiple AP nodes can be supported simultaneously.

Under this standard, the WiFi signal received by a mobile phone can be provided by multiple signal sources at the same time.

When you walk around, it can reduce the signal of APs that are farther and farther away, while allowing you to accept new AP signals with stronger and stronger signals.

It’s like the swimming pool in the elementary school math problem that discharges water and stores water at the same time.

The water level (WiFi signal) can be dynamically stabilized, thus optimizing the momentary stuttering.

>/ Do we need WiFi 7 now?

However, there are so many new features of WiFi 7 mentioned above, but to be honest, WiFi 7 is far from us. . . Quite far.

Don’t look at the recent MediaTek, Qualcomm, Xinhua Three, they have all “first released” WiFi 7 from various angles.

But when this technology is implemented, transformed, and a series of operations are completed, if we really want to experience WiFi 7, we may have to wait until 2024.

And now the release is still on the server side, and the terminal products that can really support WiFi 7 have not yet been rolled out.

And don’t forget, every time a new technology comes out, the price isn’t pretty.

WiFi 6 router price cut guide North ▼

In fact, some of the functions in WiFi 7 can actually find some shadows in the WiFi 6E standard released two years ago.

For example, it supports 6 Ghz, 4096 QAM and these functions, which can bring us a higher network speed experience.

If you really need internet speed, you might as well buy a WiFi 6E router to try it out. (Although the price is not cheap)

From this point of view, we don’t have to rush to wait for WiFi 7.

We’ll always need WiFi 7, though.

After all, it will take three or four years for this technology to land. By then, perhaps AR, VR, MR, the metaverse, or even some new things that have not yet been born.

There’s always going to be a guy who can make WiFi 7 serious.

Hashtags: Wi-Fi 6Wi-Fi 7Wireless Router