Wi-Fi 7 speeds are almost as fast as Thunderbolt 3
The next generation of consumer wireless networking could provide connections with extremely high speeds, with initial demonstrations of Wi-Fi 7 delivering about the same speed as Thunderbolt 3.
Current consumer electronics generally support Wi-Fi 6 and earlier technologies, with a few starting to use Wi-Fi 6E. Though it could still be a while away from being adopted in consumer hardware, it seems that hardware vendors are starting to test out the technology.
Semiconductor producer MediaTek has been demonstrating Wi-Fi 7 to "key customers and industry collaborators," including a successful completion of the world's first live demo, reports Digitaltrends. The test included a demonstration of MediaTek's WiFi 7 "Filogic" technology, to help achieve the maximum speed capable of the upcoming standard.
Wi-Fi 7, also known as IEEE 802.11be, is expected to provide speeds approximately 2.4 times faster than that of Wi-Fi 6, using 2.4Ghz, 5GHz, and 6GHz spectrums. It does so by widening channels to 320Mhz, as well as supporting 4K quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM).
While Wi-Fi 6 can handle up to 9.6Gbps, the Wi-Fi Alliance says Wi-Fi 7 should be able to offer "at least 30" Gbps connections, and could potentially reach 40Gbps.
For reference, a Thunderbolt 3 connection can operate at up to 40 gigabits per second, with any single peripheral on the chain limited to 32 gigabits per second, in practice. In effect, a full-speed Wi-Fi 7 connection may offer near-to Thunderbolt 3 speeds, but wirelessly.
As part of the demonstration, MediaTek showed its multi-link operation (MLO) technology, which can combine multiple channels on different frequency bands. In effect, a connection could use different bands at the same time, which mitigates any potential interference or congestion on specific bands.
"The rollout of Wi-Fi 7 will mark the first time that Wi-Fi can be a true wireline/Ethernet replacement for super high-bandwidth applications," said VP and general manager if MediaTek's Intelligent Connectivity arm, Alan Hsu. The VP believes the technology could be used for the infrastructure of both home and business networks, and to "provide seamless connectivity for everything from multiplayer AR/VR applications to cloud gaming and 4K calls to 8K streaming and beyond."
For the moment, Wi-Fi 7 is still a draft specification, but it is anticipated to be certified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2024. Despite the two-year wait, MediaTek believes that the first consumer products capable of supporting Wi-Fi 7 could ship by 2023.
It's not clear when Apple might support Wi-Fi 7. Wi-Fi 6 is the fastest revision supported on Apple products in early 2022, and even flagship iPhone 13 Pro, plus 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro are using the older spec.
Read on AppleInsider
Current consumer electronics generally support Wi-Fi 6 and earlier technologies, with a few starting to use Wi-Fi 6E. Though it could still be a while away from being adopted in consumer hardware, it seems that hardware vendors are starting to test out the technology.
Semiconductor producer MediaTek has been demonstrating Wi-Fi 7 to "key customers and industry collaborators," including a successful completion of the world's first live demo, reports Digitaltrends. The test included a demonstration of MediaTek's WiFi 7 "Filogic" technology, to help achieve the maximum speed capable of the upcoming standard.
Wi-Fi 7, also known as IEEE 802.11be, is expected to provide speeds approximately 2.4 times faster than that of Wi-Fi 6, using 2.4Ghz, 5GHz, and 6GHz spectrums. It does so by widening channels to 320Mhz, as well as supporting 4K quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM).
While Wi-Fi 6 can handle up to 9.6Gbps, the Wi-Fi Alliance says Wi-Fi 7 should be able to offer "at least 30" Gbps connections, and could potentially reach 40Gbps.
For reference, a Thunderbolt 3 connection can operate at up to 40 gigabits per second, with any single peripheral on the chain limited to 32 gigabits per second, in practice. In effect, a full-speed Wi-Fi 7 connection may offer near-to Thunderbolt 3 speeds, but wirelessly.
As part of the demonstration, MediaTek showed its multi-link operation (MLO) technology, which can combine multiple channels on different frequency bands. In effect, a connection could use different bands at the same time, which mitigates any potential interference or congestion on specific bands.
"The rollout of Wi-Fi 7 will mark the first time that Wi-Fi can be a true wireline/Ethernet replacement for super high-bandwidth applications," said VP and general manager if MediaTek's Intelligent Connectivity arm, Alan Hsu. The VP believes the technology could be used for the infrastructure of both home and business networks, and to "provide seamless connectivity for everything from multiplayer AR/VR applications to cloud gaming and 4K calls to 8K streaming and beyond."
For the moment, Wi-Fi 7 is still a draft specification, but it is anticipated to be certified by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2024. Despite the two-year wait, MediaTek believes that the first consumer products capable of supporting Wi-Fi 7 could ship by 2023.
It's not clear when Apple might support Wi-Fi 7. Wi-Fi 6 is the fastest revision supported on Apple products in early 2022, and even flagship iPhone 13 Pro, plus 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro are using the older spec.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
The second is that by the time this product is a reality, >1Gbe internet connections hopefully will be far more common. We are talking about a broad rollout in the 2027-2028 area if the adoption of Wifi6/6e is any indication.
7680 x 4320 x 2 eyes x 90FPS x 24-bit = 143Gbps. Usually content can be compressed down 5:1 or more but compression introduces latency.
3840 x 2160 x 2 eyes x 90FPS x 24-bit = 36Gbps. WiFi 7 would be fast enough for uncompressed 4K AR/VR.
It's like HDMI over WiFi - Miracast and Apple's Airplay.
There was a report about Apple's AR wearable overheating and assuming it was the processor but in the video above, the wireless transmitter had a fan because the transmitter/receiver gets hot with the data being sent continually. AR/VR products will get more compact, there's a compact one from HTC:
These products are best being wireless. While on-board processing can be good enough for some uses, streaming content from a more powerful console/desktop will be needed in some instances and is the best way to get the product more compact and lower priced.
Based on sampling I do to avoid interference when setting up or evaluating the performance of my APs I’d say that the default RF power level for most installations is set to max, especially on the 2 GHz channels, and most everyone is pretty much using the same channels. Everyone likes to see all of those signal bars/arcs on their devices lit up regardless of whether they are actually getting optimal throughput and AP-roaming performance and minimizing the battery drain on their portable devices.
The good news for me is that it’s been easy to avoid interference by picking lesser used channels, having more reliance on 5 GHz, having more APs but running them at lower power, and using wired backhaul. All of these strategies work best with non-overlapping channels, which means limiting channel bandwidths.
To a certain extent all of this fine tuning is somewhat tedious, so I’d be happy if these emerging WiFi standards introduced more protocols for actively negotiating the utilization of spectrum to avoid interference in congested scenarios. Some APs purport to passively determine optimal RF settings but I’ve never had much success with the ones I’ve tried. Active auto-negotiation wouldn’t solve all congestion issues because savvy operators would override the settings and resort to brute force, but it would probably solve a lot of the issues with cable-guy and Best Buy porcupine-of-antennas router/AP default installations. Seeing a dozen or so “MySpectrumWiFi…” SSIDs in the list of available WiFi networks in Settings on my iPad/iPhone tells the story.
That said, 400 Mbps almost sounds like your MBP is using 2.4 GHz radio channels instead of the 5 GHz radio channels. On my “ac” system I put my 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios on different SSIDs and assign specific devices to specific radios. Most of my IoT and home automation stuff only runs on 2.4 GHz and certain devices seem to struggle with the 5 GHz channels. If your MBP is allowed to pick which radio it connects to it may pick the 2.4 GHz one if its signal strength is much greater than the 5 GHz signals. Some APs allow you to tell the AP to prefer the 5 GHz over the 2.4 GHz when negotiating the connection with clients.
I’m not advocating the two SSID approach, but it works for me. WiFi 6 may be different because it supports wider channel bandwidths on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. If you don’t have a lot of 2.4 GHz-only devices at longer distances from the AP they use you can also try to turn down the power on the 2.4 GHz channel on the AP next to your MBP.
Added: Another oddity that I’ve seen especially with iPhones is that you cannot assume that they are connecting to the closest AP, even one that is only a few feet away. They tend to hang on to the AP that they first connected to even when a better one is available. It’s odd that you’re seeing a connection speed (400 Mbps) that is typically seen with “ac” systems (2x2 mimo 40 MHz channel width) when you’re using WiFi 6 on both ends.