What Could Wi-Fi 8 Bring?

It feels like Wi-Fi 7 just came out, and already Wi-Fi 8 is looking to take things up another notch. Wi-Fi 8, 802.11bn, is set to replace Wi-Fi 7 with further improvements to connection quality, and even faster speeds. While we’re still some time away from seeing any consumer devices, when Wi-Fi 8 arrives, it could help narrow the gap between wired and wireless connections even further than WI-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 were able to. For the most part, Wi-Fi 8 continues on the trajectory set by Wi-Fi 7, and while it will be faster, the goal for Wi-Fi 8 is better reliability, not purely speed.

Faster speeds, lower latency, and reduced jitter

Wi-Fi 8 is also known as Ultra High Reliability (UHR), and while its main goal isn’t an increase in speed, it’s quite impressive. As stated in an article from Everything RFWi-Fi 8 has a theoretical top speed of 100Gbps compared to 30Gbps on Wi-Fi 7. This is thanks to making better use of existing bands at 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz with automatic channel allocation to find and use channels with as little interference as possible.

Access points may also be able to adjust their power levels to avoid interference as well. Moving into the future, applications like AR and VR will need very low latency to work properly, and Wi-Fi 8 is designed to reduce latency even further than Wi-Fi 7. As detailed by Wi-Fi NOWWi-Fi 8 will have a mode that can reduce latency by 25% for the 95th percentile of latency. That means that you’ll not only see an average improvement in latency, but much more consistent latency figures. When latency is inconsistent and can spike, this is known as jitter, and it can lead to a poor experience in gaming, but can also hurt AR and VR applications.

As far as what could be accomplished with this improved latency, it will be useful for precision jobs like robotics programming or remote vehicle operation. It’s really up to the imagination at this point in time.

Will there be new frequencies?

It was also suggested earlier that Wi-Fi 8 could use ultra-high mmWave frequencies, though in an update from Dr. Srinkath Subramanian on Wi-Fi NOWthis is no longer likely to be implemented with Wi-Fi 8, but may still come in the future. You can expect Wi-Fi 8 to use the same spectrum as Wi-Fi 7, though performance could still be improved by using bands with less congestion.

As time goes on, we may see higher frequencies supported by Wi-Fi 8, or whatever follows, with more open spectrum to keep interference down, but it’s not likely for Wi-Fi 8 routers. It’s worth keeping in mind that while 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies are just about maxed out with our current tech, 6GHz remains largely open with multiple wide 320MHz channels available with Wi-Fi 7. We’re also due to soon see increases in the power levels available at 6GHz to improve coverage, at least in the United States.

Should you skip Wi-Fi 7?

While the future improvements from Wi-Fi 8 sound exciting, there isn’t much of a reason to hold out for it. Wi-Fi 8 isn’t yet finalized, which means there are no Wi-Fi 8 chipsets for devices or routers that are ready to go. Wi-Fi 7 though, for example, is still relatively new and offers way more speed than most people will need for years to come. Even Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are more than fast enough for most people.

It feels like Wi-Fi technology is moving faster than ever, and it is, but not quite as quickly as it may seem. The gap between 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) and Wi-Fi 6 was quite large, but there were incremental improvements midway through the generation with things like Wave2 802.11ac, which improved speeds over the earlier routers. Wi-Fi 6 was an improvement in almost every aspect and Wi-Fi 6E added 6GHz support.

If you’re ready for a new router now, you can get one of the best Wi-Fi routers today with plenty of speed for the fastest residential internet connections at up to 10Gbps. You could also pick a mesh system if you’ve got coverage issues in your home. If you’ve got a reasonably new router and it isn’t living up to your expectations, you could also make sure you’ve got it configured correctly with 160MHz connections and tech like MU-MIMO enabled. You could also enable a QoS if you’ve got multiple devices all fighting for the same connection.

Overall, Wi-Fi 8 is set to be an exciting upgrade to the already blazing-fast speeds we see in Wi-Fi 7 routers like the TP-Link Archer BE800 or the Eero Max 7. While latency and interference improvements aren’t as exciting as pure speed increases, they’ll do a lot to improve the experience of using the internet in its many future incarnations.

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