Some broadband users want speed and nothing but the speed when it comes to Wi-Fi. But what’s the point in mind-boggling speeds, if your connection isn’t reliable? 

The next and 8th generation of Wi-Fi looks set to let go of the notion of ridiculous speeds in favour of, well, actually working in a reliable manner. 

The Wi-Fi 8 standard is all about ultra reliability and we’re here for it. 

Wi-Fi 8 is on the way

Previous updates to our beloved wireless network technology saw a focus on pushing up the bandwidth – Yet Wi-Fi 8 is more concentrated on reliability.  

Wi-Fi 8 you say? Haven’t we only just officially adopted Wi-Fi 6? Well it seems that way, but that was actually back in 2021, swiftly followed by Wi-Fi 6E and then hot on its heels was Wi-Fi 7. Wi-Fi 7 was certified in January of last year and expected to be ratified towards the end of 2024, with support on Windows 11 added last February.  

What we all need to remember is that we can only take advantage of what the new standards have to offer if we update our devices and hardware to those that support the new standard. Therefore, full scale adoption and broader availability are still developing for Wi-Fi 7 as support increases.

The Wi-Fi Alliance predicted that 233 million Wi-Fi devices would enter the market in 2024. This figure is expected to grow to a whopping 2.1 billion devices by 2028.

Why are we chatting about Wi-Fi 8 when Wi-Fi 7 is still being adopted?

If Wi-Fi 7 is still getting established and devices such as laptops are still supporting older standards, why are we already talking about the next update? 

As with many things in the tech world, the talk and buzz starts well before the next big thing enters the market. Much of the conceptual stages and technical details behind Wi-Fi 8 are still being ironed out. 

It’s been predicted that the first Wi-Fi 8 access points will be on sale towards the end of 2028. 

The embryonic stages of Wi-Fi 8, or 802.11bn as it’s affectionately known by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), actually started back in 2022. It was known then as the UHR or Ultra High Reliability study group. At this time, there were rapid advances in data transfer speed. Although these speeds haveoften been unobtainable by network users in practice. This could be due to interference, either from nearby networks or signals being attenuated by walls or other obstructions. 

Due to the theoretical throughput of a Wi-Fi AP growing by about 40 times since Wi-Fi 4, it’s not really that surprising that the spotlight of Wi-Fi 8 has been on reliability and the efficiency of communications. 

Wi-Fi could take on a bigger role in mission critical applications due to this stronger control over latency, for example in the manufacturing industry. 

What does Wi-Fi 7 bring?

With the arrival of Wi-Fi 7 came a number of enhancements. These included:

• Doubling the channel bandwidth to 320 MHz compared with Wi-Fi 6 
• A shift to 4K QAM encoding to deliver a theoretical top speed of more than 40 Gbps
• Supporting the use of frequencies in the 6 GHz band in addition to the traditional 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands (However strictly speaking this capability was actually an add-on to some Wi-Fi 6 devices as Wi-Fi 6E
• Introducing multi-link operation (MLO), which allows for aggregation of channels in different frequency bands, allowing connections using 2.4, 5, or 6 GHz radios simultaneously

You can read more about Wi-Fi 7 on a previous Geekabit blog here. 

Why 6 GHz frequency? 

This frequency provides relatively uncrowded territory when compared with other bands – Hence the attraction to 6 GHz. 

What does Wi-Fi 8 provide that Wi-Fi 7 doesn’t?

Wireless chip firm MediaTek published a paper indicating that Wi-Fi 8 will bring much of the same specifications as Wi-Fi 7, especially in terms of those listed above.  

However, Wi-Fi 8 will bring with it additional capabilities that will improve the reliability of connections and thus boost the effective throughput that users experience in real life.

In the simplest terms, Wi-Fi 8 will help make some of the promises of Wi-Fi 7 more of a reality, such as implementing features to improve speed gains. 

Coordinated Spatial Reuse (Co-SR)

One enhancement to come with Wi-Fi 8 is Coordinated Spatial Reuse (Co-SR). This is aimed at networks with multiple access points (APs) where their signals overlap, for example on mesh networks. This will mean that clashes can be avoided by APs coordinating to adjust their signal strengths. 

This idea has built on a capability first implemented in the Wi-Fi 6 standard, called spatial reuse (SR). This lets devices adjust their channel sense thresholds, allowing channel reuse.  

Coordinated Beamforming (Co-BF)

Alongside this comes the related feature Coordinated Beamforming (Co-BF). This allows a device to direct its signal toward the intended receiver while minimising interference with other devices, extending spatial nulling in multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) environments. It does this by creating ‘nulls’ in the signal in the direction of those devices. 

Dynamic Sub-channel Operation (DSO)

An access point can also be allowed to assign devices to individual sub-channels via Dynamic Sub-channel Operation (DSO). This boosts utilisation of the spectrum. 

Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCS)

Another enhancement put forward for Wi-Fi 8 would allow device hardware to better match the data transmission rate the prevailing signal-to-noise ratio. This would be especially true when the endpoint moves away from the AP. 

The options being considered include 16-QAM with a 2/3 coding rate, 256-QAM with a 2/3 coding rate, and 16-QAM with a 5/6 coding rate.

Wi-Fi 8 to bring better performance

On the face of it, it might seem like these individual features might not make much difference when it comes to the launch of Wi-Fi 8. However, when they are combined together they are expected to help Wi-Fi 8 deliver previously promised performance from earlier standards and make them a reality. 

Will it be a worthwhile upgrade? Wi-Fi 8 is set to not only bring better reliability, but also speed improvements over Wi-Fi 7, making it a potentially worthy upgrade. This would be especially true for those where consistent connectivity is vital. Industrial environments and IoT applications could be particular winners. 

But remember! We won’t see the benefits of these new enhancements until both access points (hardware) and devices are upgraded to the new Wi-Fi 8 standard. This is likely to take a bit of time. Years in fact! It likely won’t be until we are nearing 2030. 

You can read a bit more about Wi-Fi 8 and what it has to offer on a previous Geekabit blog here.