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What are Wi-Fi Standards?

To support our ever-growing armada of smart home devices, remote working activities, and lag-free streaming and gaming experiences, the demand for fast, seamless Wi-Fi is undeniably at an all-time high. As with all modern technologies, new standards of connection, speed, and capacity are constantly being defined and developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to better suit our connected lifestyle.

The following table shows the three most recent Wi-Fi generations and their corresponding IEEE 802.11 standards:

	Wi-Fi 7	Wi-Fi 6E	Wi-Fi 6
IEEE 802.11 Standard	802.11be	802.11ax	802.11ax

Wi-Fi 7: The latest and greatest of the standards

Faster downloads and uploads of large files,
such as movies and video games.
Smoother streaming of high-definition video
and online gaming.
Improved performance for applications
that require low latency, such as virtual reality
and augmented reality.
Increased support for more connected devices
in the home, such as smart home devices,
IoT devices, and multiple users.

What is Wi-Fi 7?

Wi-Fi 7, also known as IEEE 802.11be, works across three bands (2.5 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6GHz) to fully utilize spectrum resources. While Wi-Fi 6 was built in response to the growing number of devices in the world, Wi-Fi 7’s goal is to deliver astounding speeds for every connected device with greater efficiency. If you’re struggling with constant buffering, lag, or congestion, a Wi-Fi 7 router may be your best solution.

Wi-Fi 7 introduces 320 MHz ultra-wide bandwidth, 4096-QAM, Multi-RU and Multi-Link Operation to provide speeds 4.8x faster than Wi-Fi 6 and 13x faster than Wi-Fi 5.

Learn more about Wi-Fi 7

Extremely High Throughput up to 46 Gbps

802.11be

46 Gbps
802.11ax

9.6 Gbps
802.11ac

6.9 Gbps

What is Wi-Fi 6E?

Simply put, Wi-Fi 6E is the extended version of Wi-Fi 6 due to the extension of a 6 GHz band. 6 GHz is the new frequency band ranging from 5.925 GHz to 7.125 GHz, allowing up to 1,200 MHz of additional spectrum. Access to the 6GHz frequency brings more bandwidth, faster speeds, and lower latency compared to its predecessor.

Learn more about Wi-Fi 6E

What is Wi-Fi 6?

Built to support the growing number of connected devices the everyday person owns, Wi-Fi 6 greatly improves on the previous 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard. If you own a VR device, multiple smart home devices, or simply have a large number of devices in your household, a Wi-Fi 6 router may just be the best Wi-Fi router for you.

Learn more about Wi-Fi 6

What’s Different from the Previous Generations?

	Wi-Fi 7	Wi-Fi 6E	Wi-Fi 6
Launch Date	2024 (expected)	2021	2019
IEEE Standard	802.11be	802.11ax	802.11ax
Max Data Rate	46 Gbps	9.6 Gbps	9.6 Gbps
Security	WPA 3	WPA 3	WPA 3
Bands	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz	2.4 GHz, 5 GHz
Channel Size	Up to 320 MHz	20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, (7×) 160 MHz*	20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, (7×) 160 MHz*
Modulation	4096-QAM OFDMA (with extensions)	1024-QAM	1024-QAM
MIMO	16×16 UL/DL MU-MIMO	8×8 MU-MIMO	8×8 MU-MIMO
RU	Multi-RUs	RU	RU
MAC	MLO	/	/

*The FCC opened up 1200 MHz (7× 160 MHz) of spectrum in the 6 GHz band, paving the way for Wi-Fi 6E in the US. The European Union has opened up 480 MHz (3× 160 MHz) spectrum in the 6 GHz band for the implementation of wireless access systems.

Bands

Wi-Fi 7: Unleashes the full potential of the 6 GHz band to double the bandwidth of the last generation while extending channel width to 320 MHz—enabling simultaneous transmissions at the fastest possible speeds.

Wi-Fi 6E: Unlike the crowded 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands of Wi-Fi 6, the wide-open 6 GHz spectrum removes frustrations caused by overcrowding on many Wi-Fi networks while greatly reducing network congestion.

Wi-Fi 6: Wi-Fi 6 expands the Wi-Fi 5 band from 80 MHz to 160 MHz, doubling the channel width and creating a faster connection from your router to the device.

Bands

6 GHz: The 6 GHz band is the newest and least congested Wi-Fi band of the three. It offers the fastest speeds and the longest range.

5 GHz: The 5 GHz band is a newer and less congested band than the 2.4 GHz band that offers faster speed, but a shorter range.

2.4 GHz: The 2.4 GHz band is the oldest and most widely used Wi-Fi band, and consequently the most congested band. It’s most commonly used by microwaves and cordless phones.

MU-MIMO

Wi-Fi 7: To meet the growing trafﬁc demands generated by the increasing number of Wi-Fi devices, the number of antennas on networking products continues to increase to improve spatial multiplexing capabilities. Wi-Fi 7 increases the number of spatial streams from 8 to 16, effectively doubling the physical transmission rate of Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E and allowing up to 100 devices to be connected at once.

Wi-Fi 6E & Wi-Fi 6: Featuring 8 spatial streams, the transmission rate of Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, although slightly slower than that of Wi-Fi 7, can effectively connect up to 80 devices.

4K-QAM

To further enhance peak rates, Wi-Fi 7 adopts a higher-order modulation scheme: 4096-QAM. This enables each symbol to carry 12 bits rather than 10 bits, which means 20% higher theoretical transmission rates than Wi-Fi 6’s 1024-QAM. A higher transmission rate allows users to obtain higher transmission efﬁciency. Now you can watch flawless 4K/8K videos, play massive online games without lag, or live stream from your home computer. With 4096-QAM, streaming just got that much better.

10 bits/symbol

12 bits/symbol

User 1

User 2

Not Used

User 1

User 2

Multi-RUs

Resource Units (RU)

With Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, each user can only send or receive frames on an assigned resource unit (RU), which signiﬁcantly limits the ﬂexibility of the spectrum resource scheduling. To solve this problem and further enhance spectral efﬁciency, Wi-Fi 7 allows multiple RUs to be assigned to a single user and can combine RUs for increased transmission efficiency.

Preamble Puncturing

With Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, busy channels meant bands could not be fully used to their potential leaving data to only be sent through the primary channel.

With Wi-Fi 7 and Preamble Puncturing, the interference can be blocked, opening up more channels to use.

Without Preamble Puncturing

Unavailable

These channels are wasted

With Preamble Puncturing

Puncturing

These channels are available

*STR-MLMR MLO Mode (Simultaneous Transmit and Receive Multi-Link Multi-Radio Operation Mode) **E-MLSR MLO Mode (Enhanced Multi-Link Single Radio Operation Mode)

WiFi 6

Single Link

5 GHz

2.4 GHz

WiFi 7

Multi-Link

Multi-Radio MLO*

5/6 GHz

2.4 GHz

Higher Throughput

Single Radio MLO**

6 GHz

5 GHz

Lower Latency

Multi-Link Operation

Traditional Wi-Fi devices and previous generations such as Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E use a single link to transmit data. With Multi-Link Operation (MLO), Wi-Fi 7 enables devices to simultaneously send and receive data across different frequency bands and channels to increase throughput, reduce latency, and improve reliability for emerging applications like VR/AR, online gaming, remote offices, and cloud computing.