7 is the luckiest number, so maybe it's fitting that Wi-Fi 7 claims to solve the age-old issue
of your signal becoming unreliable when you're too far from your router or access point.
But isn't Wi-Fi 6E still super new and super awesome? Well, it is, and it turns out that the
Wi-Fi 7 spec isn't even finalized yet. That'll most likely happen in late 2023 or early 2024.
But a handful of phones that support it are already out, and a few routers are available for
pre-order for shipping this year. And even if you don't want to shell out $700 for one,
cheaper models are certainly coming. So let's have a look at what they're promising.
The biggest features to be excited about aren't raw speed improvements, but range and reliability.
A huge part of this is a trick that Wi-Fi 7 uses called multi-link operation, or MLO, or MLO.
All previous versions of Wi-Fi involved an access point connecting to a client device
on one channel using one frequency band. Think about how when you connect your phone to a Wi-Fi
network, you're often asked to choose between a 2.4 or a 5GHz signal. With MLO, though, one
router can connect and send data to your device on multiple channels using multiple bands at the
same time, including, yes, the new 6GHz band that was introduced with Wi-Fi 6E. The obvious benefit
of this is a faster connection, since more data can be moved around at once. But for most folks,
the bigger advantage is going to be how far you can get from the router and still have a connection
that's at least good enough without having to switch to a different network. You see,
the higher frequency you use, the faster your connection is, but unfortunately,
the shorter range it'll be. 5GHz Wi-Fi is already notorious for having a relatively short range,
and this is even more of a problem with the new 6GHz connections. However, MLO lets you continue
using a lower frequency if you're far away from the router, so while your connection might not have
as much raw speed, it'll still allow you to keep doing what you're doing, unless what you're doing
is some seriously high bandwidth stuff. One way that you can make up for the short range of faster
high frequency signals is to add more power to them. Sounds simple, but there are actually legal
limits on how much power you can give a Wi-Fi signal, that's to prevent interference with other
broadcasts flying through the air. Wi-Fi 7, though, has a couple of nifty ways to get around this kind
of interference. One is called automated frequency coordination, or AFC. Basically, it checks the
database of registered broadcasters, such as radar or satellite, to ensure that increasing
power won't have adverse effects on anyone else's activity. Another is called puncturing, where if
a portion of a channel is already in use for some other purpose other than Wi-Fi, the router can
still use the rest of that channel to talk to client devices. And as the standard evolves,
we may see even more ways to keep your connections strong. If you're somewhere like an airport or
hotel, you might have experienced a signal drop as you move around, even though there might be an
access point right there. They're all over the place in those buildings. But this is because
clients like phones have a really nasty habit of holding on to their existing connection as long as
they can, and roaming over to a closer access point only when it's absolutely necessary. This has
been a common frustration for many generations, but it's possible that a future revision of the
Wi-Fi 7 spec may allow for more robust automatic coordination between access points. Again,
though, the spec is not yet finalized, so time will tell. But we've talked a lot about keeping
the connection from dropping. What about the actual performance if you're very close to the router?
Well, Wi-Fi 7 is faster. But as with any new revision of Wi-Fi, you can't go by the maximum
speed it says on the box. Although Wi-Fi 7 can use insanely huge 320MHz wide channels on that
6G band, most devices will still likely use 160MHz channels on a 2x2 connection. So realistically,
I'd expect close to 3Gbps optimistically, but that's still much faster than the vast majority
of internet connections out there. And there are a suite of tools within the Wi-Fi 7 spec to reduce
latency as well. So we might finally have a version of Wi-Fi that you can game on without
getting fragged by someone that uses an Ethernet cable for absolutely everything.
A girl can dream. Thanks for watching guys. If you liked this video, hit like, hit subscribe,
and hit us up in the comments section with your ideas of topics we should cover in the future.