Wi-Fi 7 – Technology Realities and Way Forward

With pre-standard Wi-Fi 7 products, based on the IEEE 802.11be amendment, already available in the market, and technology demonstrators showing data rates exceeding 5Gbps the technology is living up to its name of “Extreme High Throughput”. The key innovation of Wi-Fi 7, however, is not necessarily in achieving these high data rates, rather the introduction of a multi-link operation concept into Wi-Fi. In this paper we will provide a brief overview of the key Wi-Fi 7 technology innovations and discuss why we expect future Wi-Fi technologies will need to expand on the multi-link concept and new spectrum to continue deliver increasing end-user value with future Wi-Fi generations.