Wi-Fi® has achieved a significant milestone in 2024 as this year marks 25 years of one of technology’s greatest success stories. The expansive reach of Wi-Fi transcends physical and geographical boundaries, fostering a sense of unity and global connectivity that touches almost all aspects of daily life. As we celebrate a quarter century of Wi-Fi innovation and impact, read on to learn more about how today’s Wi-Fi successes are transforming the way people work, live, and play. 

The launch of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7™

Wi-Fi 7 has officially become today’s Wi-Fi. With heightened speeds and deterministic latency, Wi-Fi 7 supports applications that require superior reliability to create an elevated experience for the use cases that have quickly become mainstays, like ultra-high definition video streaming, hybrid work and rich telepresence, and multi-user AR/VR/XR in enterprise and education. Wi-Fi 7 also supports complex environments and processes, including bringing immersive 3-D surgical training to healthcare professionals and supporting an IoT ecosystem of devices that depend on real-time monitoring in industrial settings.

Wi-Fi Alliance® celebrated the launch of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7 in January 2024, beginning the first wave of mass market adoption. Wi-Fi Alliance certification typically serves as an inflection point in the industry as products fill the shelves, and forecasts predict that the rate of Wi-Fi 7 adoption will exceed previous generations of Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi uptake in 2024

Wi-Fi delivers the connectivity users worldwide depend on every day, and its momentum shows no signs of slowing down. In 2024, it is predicted that there will be more than 21 billion Wi-Fi devices in active use, connecting users in their homes, on the go, and everywhere in between.[1] 2024 will also see an increase in 6 GHz devices with an estimated 807.5 million shipments expected by the end of the year.[2] Wi-Fi is anticipated to continue its immense economic impact by delivering more than $4.3 trillion of economic value this year.[3]

Wi-Fi is the catalyst for innovation

Part of Wi-Fi’s success is that it provides a foundation for innovation. Because organizations are not locked into a specific network provider, if they can dream it, they can make it – and that flexibility has made Wi-Fi ubiquitous, showing up in some unexpected places. The Artemis mission, for example, saw the first usage of Wi-Fi in lunar orbit, enabling cameras that survey the condition of the vehicle. Wi-Fi provides crucial connectivity to Base Camp at Mount Everest, as well as on Mount Fuji, the North Pole, and even at the San Jose Cemetery in Spain. Perhaps one of the most surprising elements of Wi-Fi is that it has evolved beyond its original purpose to reach places it was never expected to be, meaning that Wi-Fi really is everywhere, all the time. 

Innovation is not only measured in the spectacular but also in the more mundane daily use cases that can be easily taken for granted. Wi-Fi is essential in delivering healthcare around the globe, with healthcare workers easily accessing electronic medical records and MRI results on tablets that enable them to provide care in real-time. In industry, Wi-Fi is part of the critical infrastructure in fulfillment centers and manufacturing plants. During the pandemic, Wi-Fi supported students and collaboration in remote workplaces. At home, Wi-Fi provides security and safety through smart locks and cameras, and supplies our entertainment through wireless speakers and streaming content without the cords.

As we celebrate the impact of today’s Wi-Fi, we want to thank our members for their contributions to the technology that has revolutionized our daily lives. Wi-Fi is not just this foundational layer that things sit on top of, but rather, it is interwoven through everything we do. 

[1] IDC Research, March 2023

[2] IDC Research, November 2023

[3] Telecom Advisory Services, 2021

Today's episode is all about Automated Frequency Coordination. We're welcoming Rolf de Vegt, VP of Technical Standards at Qualcomm, back to the podcast to tell us how AFC is expanding the use of Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz band. Rolf gives us a technical overview, and we discuss the different indoor and outdoor use cases that will utilize standard power in 6 GHz. We learn how AFC will provide significant throughput gains that will benefit users, and Rolf shares his insight about AFC testing and trials. Listen to this episode to learn more, and check out our AFC resources below. 

6 GHz AFC Resources: https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/6-ghz-afc-resources 
For Wi-Fi Alliance: https://www.wi-fi.org  
For Membership Info: https://www.wi-fi.org/membership 
General Contact: https://www.wi-fi.org/contact-us 

Wi-Fi 7 brings advanced Wi-Fi® performance to the next era of connected devices. In this new blog series, we’ll explore how Wi-Fi 7 enables innovation across various market segments. 

Wi-Fi 7, the most recent advancement in wireless technology standards, was designed to address several challenges faced by its predecessors and offers significant advancements in speed, capacity, and efficiency. But with any new technology, new risks and challenges arise. To benefit from all Wi-Fi 7 has to offer, organizations need to prioritize offerings that include comprehensive security and AI-powered IT operations tools.  

The many advantages of Wi-Fi 7 in enterprise environments  

One of the primary challenges Wi-Fi 7 tackles is the increasing demand for higher data rates. With the proliferation of bandwidth-intensive applications, such as 4K video streaming and multi-user collaboration tools, Wi-Fi 7 provides blazing-fast data transfer speeds reaching up to multiple gigabits per second to deliver faster downloads, seamless streaming, and low latency connections. These ensure a positive user experience, even in environments with many connected devices.  

Wi-Fi 7 addresses network congestion and enhances overall network performance through improved channel and spectrum utilization. New multi-link technology allows concurrent connections and data to use multiple channels across single or multiple frequency bands, aggregating bandwidth for greater performance. This allows items such as videoconferencing systems to keep low power association on 2.4 GHz while potentially leveraging other bands for high data throughput. It is also vital in helping to address some of the challenges of operational technology (OT) and Internet of Things (IoT) convergence in the modern campus. 

“Puncturing” is another Wi-Fi 7 technology designed to improve transmission channel usage. It allows a Wi-Fi 7 access point to transmit in portions of a channel that aren’t in use, even if the channel is being used by others. This also allows for more efficient use of spectrum in environments experiencing interference from other devices. By pairing this with Multiple Resource Unit (MRU) capabilities, the same client device can still leverage this “split” channel. This becomes even more important as Wi-Fi 7 can support a 320 MHz channel, which is double the width of Wi-Fi 6.  

While Wi-Fi 7 isn’t the first standard to incorporate enhanced security features such as Wi-Fi CERTIFIED WPA3™, any technology change that leads to device updates is positive. As older devices age out, improved authentication mechanisms and encryption algorithms will become more prevalent to ensure a more secure wireless communication environment, safeguarding sensitive data from unauthorized access and potential cyber threats.  

Deploying Wi-Fi 7 alone isn’t enough 

The advantages of Wi-Fi 7 are critical for today’s businesses, especially those that rely on connected devices and bandwidth-hungry applications. But it’s essential to remember that few technological advances can be deployed without impacting other legacy systems. While assessing Wi-Fi 7 advantages, remember that it may be necessary to upgrade your network to support the new wireless standard.  

First and foremost, the exponential growth in data consumption and the proliferation of bandwidth-intensive applications necessitate a network that can handle higher data transfer speeds. Wi-Fi 7, with its ability to deliver multi-gigabit speeds, requires that the underlying network can keep up with the escalating demands of data-intensive tasks. This is particularly crucial for healthcare, financial services, and educational industries, where large datasets and real-time applications are integral to daily operations. 

At the same time, the increased device density in modern workplaces—primarily driven by the adoption of IoT and mobile devices—calls for networks with enhanced capacity. While Wi-Fi 7 enables more efficient handling and higher bandwidth of numerous concurrently connected devices, the rest of the network must also be able to handle that additional load. This is especially vital for organizations where network reliability directly impacts productivity and operational efficiency.  

Reduced latency and improved channel utilization result in faster response times, benefiting applications for videoconferencing, cloud-based collaboration tools, and other latency-sensitive processes. But those advantages can be made less effective if the rest of the network cannot keep up. 

Is your network security fast enough? Probably not 

Decrypting and inspecting encrypted traffic is the Achilles’ heel of most security devices, and increased traffic speed and volume will only make matters worse. And as threats become more sophisticated, new issues like inspecting rich media and streaming video to detect deep fakes or embedded malware are beyond the capacity of nearly all the cybersecurity appliances on the market that have not yet been augmented with custom processors.  

Staying ahead of today’s threat actors requires deploying robust security measures on devices designed to meet new performance and throughput demands. High-performance network security devices, like advanced hybrid mesh firewalls, are crucial to safeguarding sensitive data, ensuring optimal user experience, and maintaining the trust of clients and partners. 

Wi-Fi 7 must be part of a larger strategy 

Networking infrastructure must keep up with the performance benefits of Wi-Fi 7 and the increased demands of today’s applications. Switches and related technologies within your network should not become a bottleneck once Wi-Fi 7 is in place. 

In today’s business environment, upgrading to Wi-Fi 7 is a strategic imperative for organizations looking to stay competitive and resilient in a digitally driven world. The advantages of higher speeds, increased capacity, network efficiency, and enhanced security collectively position Wi-Fi 7 as a transformative technology that aligns with the evolving needs of modern businesses. Organizations must ensure the rest of their networks, especially security solutions, can keep up. 

Learn more about Wi-Fi 7 from Fortinet here.  

Today, we're back with our CEO Insights series. In this episode, Wi-Fi Alliance CEO Kevin Robinson and co-CEO and Founder of Airties Metin Taskin share their insights on what Wi-Fi 7 will bring for service providers, and how it will enable them to better serve their customers. Metin tells us about the roles of both standardization and open source from a service provider perspective, and the move away from monolithic designs. We discuss the trend around fixed wireless access, and Metin shares more about Airties' recent partnership with Qualcomm. Listen to this episode to learn more.

Airties Collaborates with Qualcomm to Accelerate 5G Fixed Wireless Adoption with Broadband Carriers: https://airties.com/2023/12/14/airties-collaborates-with-qualcomm-to-accelerate-5g-fixed-wireless-adoption-with-broadband-carriers/
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7™: https://www.wi-fi.org/discover-wi-fi/wi-fi-certified-7
For Wi-Fi Alliance: www.wi-fi.org
For Membership Info: https://www.wi-fi.org/membership
General Contact: https://www.wi-fi.org/contact-us

Wi-Fi 7 brings advanced Wi-Fi® performance to the next era of connected devices. In this new blog series, we’ll explore how Wi-Fi 7 enables innovation across various market segments.

Automotive presents an interesting opportunity for Wi-Fi® as vehicles quickly move through multiple connectivity capacities and varying environments. Many of the latest vehicle models offer rich infotainment systems that interact with our devices and require constant data transfer to maintain a high-quality experience. Mobility is also a key consideration and presents a complex radiofrequency (RF) scenario as vehicles pass through multiple sources of interference while in transit. As user demand for interactive applications continues to increase, the key features of Wi-Fi 7, based on IEEE 802.11be technology, work together to support enhanced connectivity in automotive scenarios.

To discuss the automotive space, it is important to understand the three main vehicle telematics/infotainment use cases that are supported by Wi-Fi:

Use case 1: A vehicle telematics/infotainment unit provides a hotspot and is an access point (AP), including providing infotainment services to onboarded devices

Use case 2: A vehicle telematics/infotainment unit acts as a client device and connects to an external AP for:

• Internet connectivity for applications such as software update and download, diagnostics upload, security cameras, live video upload, etc. 
• For data exchange with surrounding devices such as parameter exchange for electric vehicle (EV) charging

Use case 3: A vehicle telematics/infotainment unit provides a means of casting devices brought onboard on the vehicle infotainment unit

Most of the above-mentioned scenarios need to run simultaneously and frequently. Vehicle telematics/infotainment units need to be able to act concurrently as an AP hotspot, a client device, and a peer-to-peer or local AP for casting. Transitions between internet connectivity by cellular and Wi-Fi also add to this mix.

Wi-Fi 7 features that help address automotive-specific challenges

While many of Wi-Fi 7’s features provide overall improvements to many use cases including automotive, these features specifically support vehicular needs:

• Multi-link operation (MLO) and features specific to MLO: Creates robustness by allowing multiple links in different bands, or different portions of the same band, to be established between client device multi-link devices and AP multi-link devices, and reduces the likelihood of disruption in data exchange as transient interferers fall within/without range of the vehicle antennas. This feature is helpful in all three use case categories mentioned above
• Service Level Agreement (SLA) adherence via Stream Classification Service (SCS) and Restricted Target Wake Time (R-TWT): Because of the potentially frequent disruptions or impairment of Wi-Fi links in all automotive use case categories above, it becomes increasingly important to improve quality of service (QoS) predictability and consistency of experience for QoS-sensitive applications such as voice sessions, in-vehicle gaming, audio/video streaming, etc. Added capabilities in SCS to describe desired QoS characteristics such as delay bound and minimum data rate requested for a specific flow are used during resource allocation, while R-TWT allows for a time slot’s exclusive reservation per a STA’s request. 
• 5G Quality Index/Wi-Fi QoS mapping: Because of the potential disruptions or impairment of Wi-Fi links in the automotive use cases listed above, it becomes increasingly important to improve end-to-end QoS predictability and consistency of experience for QoS-sensitive applications such as voice sessions, in-vehicle gaming, audio/video streaming, etc., when the backhaul link for vehicle’s internet connectivity is over a cellular connection, as in use case 2. A consistent treatment of application data packets according to their respective flows’ QoS needs, even as they change transportation medium, e.g., travel through cellular, Ethernet and Wi-Fi can greatly improve end-to-end user experience.

Different locations affect connectivity scenarios

Generally, for a vehicle on the move, the surrounding RF channel the signal has to travel through changes very rapidly. The vehicle on the move might fall in or out of range of other users of the RF medium which could drastically change the interference levels it perceives. This may include scenarios wherein the vehicle is within proximity of LTE or 5G base stations, or even the exclusion zones for incumbent users of channels in 5 GHz (those subject to dynamic frequency selection) and 6 GHz bands (those subject to automated frequency coordination). Such rapid changes expose automotive Wi-Fi use cases to a level of RF channel variations and disruptions not commonly experienced by other types of users. By using MLO to enhance connection robustness and mechanisms mentioned above which allow more strict adherence to QoS required for different applications, Wi-Fi 7 takes meaningful steps toward overcoming the unique challenges of automotive Wi-Fi use cases. 

Important connectivity requirements for each automotive use case

Use case 1: Key factors for scenarios where vehicle telematic/infotainment units provide a hotspot (acting as an AP) for devices onboard include robust links that do not break as different interferers fall within and without range and predictable and persistent QoS in terms of data rate, latency, and jitter. It is important for those indicators to persist through various interference and congestion scenarios. In these scenarios, the range of coverage is of less importance than link robustness since the client devices are in proximity to the vehicle AP.

Use case 2: In scenarios where vehicle telematic/infotainment units act as a client device, range of coverage as well as link robustness are important. QoS indicators can also be important here as users expect smooth sessions with no disruption and sufficiently high data rate and low latency/jitter. For example, it is expected that a vehicle in a parking lot can associate with an externally accessible AP in as far an inter-distance between the two as possible, and that the link established sustains without disruption as other vehicles and devices come and go and deliver the QoS it promises. 

Use case 3: When vehicle telematic/infotainment units provide casting services (either by acting as an AP or via peer-to-peer link) for devices onboard, robust links that do not break as different interferers fall within and without range, and predictable and persistent QoS in terms of data rate, latency, and jitter, are key factors. It is important for those indicators to persist through various interference and congestion scenarios. In these scenarios, range of coverage is of less importance since the client devices are in proximity of the vehicle telematics/infotainment unit. These scenarios include critical applications such as navigation projection whose poor performance could have passenger safety implications.

By supporting increased robustness and QoS for sensitive applications, Wi-Fi 7 delivers a reliable, consistent experience in automotive scenarios. 

Stay tuned as we discover how Wi-Fi 7 will support connectivity enhancements across market segments.