Technology is always advancing and is generally a few years ahead of what is relevant to our daily lives.

Wi-Fi is no exception and recent advertisements on the TV and in the press would make you believe ‘you need Wi-Fi 7’.

We have produced this article to address these claims, give you a bit more info on internet and Wi-Fi and if adopting Wi-Fi 7 will it make any difference or even work on your devices. Just bear in mind Wi-Fi 8 is also now in development.

For our domestic needs the current Wi-Fi 6 is far more than adequate to deliver great user experience. We always recommend as part of our systems that essential devices that can be wired-up are.

So, TV’s and Media Players like Sky and Apple TV would be directly connected to the internet router. When this is the case, they don’t rely on Wi-Fi at all and will be able to download or stream content at your full internet provider’s speed.

Currently these speeds max out at 60-70Mbs for a copper phone line connection and 900Mbs for a Full Fiberoptic Home connection. Confusion prevails as a supplier may state Fiberoptic is available to you, but this may only be to the street cabinet, so you’ll only be using copper from there to your home.

It’s important to remember these facts. Your internet supplier usually supplies your router and will make climes such as – ‘The Fastest Wi-Fi available’. In fact, even a 2–3-year-old router will have a Wi-Fi throughput that can exceed the copper speeds of your provider. So, opting for a new Wi-Fi 7 router just as it’s available will make absolutely no difference. It’s a marketing tactic to make you sign-up with a different contract or alternative supplier.

If the devices most important for media viewing are hard-wired the only limiting factor will be your internet connection speed. Media providers like BBC, Amazon, Netflix, Disney and Apple have worked very hard to provide you with fantastic quality and experience when delivered through even the most basic internet connection speeds. They are geared up to stream ultra-high definition content at well below the max copper speeds available. In fact, if you have a 70Mbs internet connection you can expect to play 2-3 high-definition programs at the same time with no buffering or dropouts.

The devices connected to Wi-Fi in your home should only be mobile devices like phones, tablets, laptops and IOT devices.

These, unless they stream high definition, do not put a high demand on the Wi-Fi infrastructure. Browsing, social media and email uses very little internet bandwidth.

More important for the Wi-Fi hardware (usually your router) is the ability to support lots of devices.

Wi-Fi 6 was introduced to provide a wide range of new features and enhancements aimed at improving the overall user experience in scenarios when multiple simultaneous users were connected.

While Wi-Fi 6 did extend support for higher data rates through the expansion of the bandwidth to 160Mhz the primary focus remained on delivering improved service to multiple simultaneous users.

Wi-Fi 6 is available on lots of devices now and well supported, for the most part your mobile device could never demand more than Wi-Fi 6 could deliver even when many devices (clients) are connected at the same time.

Nearly all IOT devices like smart lighting, toasters, fridges, vacuum’s use the legacy Wi-Fi bands at the lowest speeds so other than getting adequate signal, can be ignored.

Each modern mobile device has multiple radio receivers, these each support different frequency bands, each band having a different speed capacity.

Devices intelligently connect using the fastest band that the signal allows, as signal and frequency are inversely proportional. Often in a single home router situation they are not connected at the fastest speed due to low signal.

Now, for Wi-Fi 7 to work it needs a signal level of 42dB (quite high) so the device will need to be very close to the router, having multiple antennas on the router can give a max of 18ft range in line-of-sight conditions. Through a wall its unlikely to work at all and the device will fail back to Wi-Fi 6 or lesser.

We see the use of Wi-Fi 7 where thousands of client devices need an internet connection at great speeds. Such as in Stadium’s, Lecture theatres and other public spaces.

If anyone tells you need it in your home be very sceptical, it could have its uses in a scenario when the whole house is wired with CAT cables, and a Wi-Fi 7 antenna can be fitted in every room. However, you’ll never get more from the Wi-Fi than the incoming internet can supply, so claims of 1900Mbs on Wi-Fi are irrelevant.

Bob Crowson

Technical Lead