• Multi RU and Puncturing – Multi RU and puncturing is another very promising
Wi-Fi 8 is being designed around ultra high reliability (UHR), and its main purpose will be to deliver consistent, low latency, and near-zero loss performance by achieving wired-grade reliability for mission-critical applications like AR/VR, industrial automation, and AI-driven systems—even in congested, mobile, or high interference environments. A first draft of the Wi-Fi 8 standard is currently scheduled to be ready in late 2025, with final IEEE approval expected in the second quarter of 2028. Wi-Fi Alliance certification should follow soon thereafter, and the first enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 8 APs could be available by late 2028 (with broader market adoption in 2029). All that being said, if history has taught us anything, it is that Wi-Fi standard releases often get delayed. So, it should not be surprising if 802.11bn does not get ratified by the IEEE until late 2028 or early 2029. So, what does all of this mean for Wi-Fi networks in specialized environments? Wi-Fi 8 is less about achieving higher speeds and more about increasing network reliability, especially in deployments where signal drops, latency spikes, and roaming failures are
more likely to occur. It is being designed to better support high-density environments, mobile users, and high-interference areas more efficiently. If one is planning long-term infrastructure upgrades or evaluating future-proof APs for enterprise or specialized premises use, Wi-Fi 8 will be the standard to keep an eye on. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY: Julio Petrovitch is a product manager at NetAlly, and a certified CWNA/CWAP/CWDP/CWSP. He has worked with network design, testing and validation for more than 15 years. Throughout his career he has worked with many networking technologies including POTS, DSL, copper/fiber Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and BLE. SOURCES: 1. Intel and Broadcom Achieve First Cross-Vendor Wi-Fi 7 Demo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh5Wl-0rsrE
LOOKING AHEAD: AN ULTRA-RELIABLE FUTURE WITH WI-FI 8 What about Wi-Fi 8 and what the future looks like? Wi-Fi 8, officially named 802.11bn by the IEEE, is the next generation in wireless networking, and it marks a big shift in priorities. Where Wi-Fi 7 focuses on increasing throughput and lowering latency, Pro Tip: Wi-Fi 7 mesh deployments will benefit the most by using STR to increase backhaul communications performance. Pro Tip: Multi RU and Puncturing could potentially help with Automated Frequency Coordination ( AFC ) as it could allow the use of wider channels in outdoor deployments by blocking the frequencies being used by other technologies (incumbents) using the 6 GHz band, thus helping to prevent interference with them.
improvement to the Wi-Fi technology that helps to greatly improve Wi-Fi network performance in high-density environments. The reason is that using RUs allows wider channels to be used by multiple client devices at the same time (lowering latency). Plus, by using puncturing techniques, Wi-Fi 7 APs have the ability to block
sections of a channel being impacted by interference while allowing the rest of it to be used by client devices.
• 16×16 MU-MIMO – Having an AP with 16 antennas may sound promising as it would help increase Wi-Fi network throughput; however, we likely will not be seeing many of them in the real world. The main reason is the form factor. One can imagine how big an AP will need to be to fit 16 antennas (or more if they are external antennas). As it is, APs with 8 antennas could be considered huge already—and what about client devices? Most client devices are expected to continue to include only 1 or 2 antennas because of form factor (e.g., limited space inside phones or tablets) and power requirements (e.g., limited battery life). CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, Wi-Fi 7 is a promising new version of the 802.11 technology, and it certainly has the potential to help increase wireless network throughput in specialized environments like industrial plants, healthcare facilities, educational campuses, and high-density public spaces. But perhaps not as quickly as the marketing hype might have you think. Even though it promises data rates of up to 46.4 Gbps, lab tests show that the highest throughput for a common mobile device will be 5 Gbps. 1 Most importantly, the higher throughput speeds promised by Wi-Fi 7 are most likely to be best suited for home networks, as many of the new features introduced will not work as well in complex enterprise or specialized environments. Wi-Fi 7 will only deliver modest improvements for hospitals, universities, or factories.
I
I
12
ICT TODAY
October/November/December 2025
13
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs