On May 4, 2022, Qualcomm announced the launch of the third generation of Qualcomm professional networking platform portfolio that supports Wi-Fi 7 networks.
Image source: Qualcomm
Before the Wi-Fi 7 standard was released, Qualcomm had already begun to launch related product solutions.
Is the inevitable association with Wi-Fi 7 not far away?
Wi-Fi 7 corresponds to IEEE 802.11, which will release a new revised standard, IEEE 802.11be, according to the standard development timeline disclosed by the IEEE 802.11be EHT Working Group. At this point in May 2022, which is still in the middle stages of Wi-Fi 7 development, the release of the second draft draft Draft 2.0 was carried out, and the final standard release date is scheduled for May 2024. It's still two years away.
Source: IEEE
We're going to use the god-of-god Wi-Fi 6 that has been advertised for some time. Unlike other Wi-Fi standards, Wi-Fi 6 was born at a good time.
Wi-Fi 6 was released at a time that almost overlapped with 5G, the fifth generation of mobile communication technology, and people began to pay attention to whether Wi-Fi at home was the latest technology while discussing the speed of cellular networks. Wi-Fi 6 has been built by technology manufacturers to represent the same ultra-high network transmission rate as 5G.
When we buy a router, we often see this title "Is it necessary to buy a Wi-Fi 6 router?" 》。 The answer is often: "If the internet speed at home is less than gigabit, there is no need to change." ”
Sounds like there's nothing wrong with that.
However, it is often misunderstood that Wi-Fi 6 was designed at the beginning of the standard to improve the quality of the connection after multi-device access, not the transmission speed. Although the data throughput is 25% higher than Wi-Fi 5, wi-Fi 6 can be said to have a pitiful increase in speed compared to the previous generations of more than ten times the increase.
The IEEE also admits to this problem: "The low growth of transmission rates may not attract consumers, which in turn will affect the sales of Wi-Fi 6 devices." ”
So the Wi-Fi 7 standard will be back to the goal of increasing network speed. Wi-Fi 7's data transfer speeds will reach 40Gbps, which has already reached the transmission rate of the Thunderbolt 3 interface. It has reached a level where wireless can be used instead of wired.
While the transmission rate increases, Wi-Fi 7 will also significantly reduce network latency. Target video/voice conferencing, cloud/edge computing, interactive telemedicine, immersive AR/VR, and more.
This time Wi-Fi is currently within the framework of the 802.11 protocol, and there is actually not much collaborative relationship between the APs. Common WLAN functions such as auto-tuning and smart roaming are manufacturer-specific features. To this end, Wi-Fi 7 improves the collaborative scheduling ability between multiple routers, which can better cover large areas.
The iterative process of Wi-Fi is faster than expected. From 1997, when the first generation of Wi-Fi standard 802.11 was born to the present, 7 versions of the standard have been iterated in 25 years, basically there will be a small version of the update in 1 to 2 years, and a large version iteration in 3 to 4 years.
Image source: WiKi
It's just that before Wi-Fi 6, we didn't pay attention to the progress of Wi-Fi, and in the eyes of most people, routers are even like color TV refrigerators that can be used for ten years.
When the network card, complain about the operator, rarely think that it is their own router dragging their legs.