Will Special Premises See the 46 Gbps Speeds Wi-Fi 7 Promises? By Julio Petrovich Will we see those speeds in the real world? If so, where?
in the real world, or will they be merely marketing hype? How will Wi-Fi 7 achieve these higher speeds? Which premises will see the most benefit? After all, locations like industrial plants, healthcare facilities, schools, and public spaces are quite different from home or office environments, and the new features of Wi-Fi 7 will not apply to all of them equally. The first thing to understand is how Wi-Fi 7 expects to achieve these higher data rates. KEY FEATURES OF WI-FI 7 Many of the new features included with Wi-Fi 7 are designed to build upon those introduced by earlier Wi-Fi generations, with the primary purpose of not only increasing Wi-Fi network speeds, but also dramatically decreasing latency and enhancing reliability. Here are some of the most important enhancements being introduced with Wi-Fi 7 and how they can help achieve higher speeds:
Today’s multi-gigabit internet plans are quickly outpacing the current speeds of Wi-Fi technology. To help resolve this problem, Wi-Fi 7, also known as 802.11be, promises data rates that are four times higher than Wi-Fi 6/6E (Figure 1). The new standard, Extremely High Throughput (EHT), promises to deliver true multi-gigabit Wi-Fi throughput to both home and enterprise networks with faster speeds, better interference avoidance, and thus better performance for high-bandwidth activities like 8K video streaming, multi-gig file downloads, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and cloud gaming. Wi-Fi 7 is expected to increase maximum data rates from 9.6 Gbps to an incredible 46.4 Gbps. The promise of these new data rates raises several questions. Most importantly, will those speeds be seen
FIGURE 2: Channel allocation and widths within the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi, highlighting the UNII-5, UNII-6, UNII-7, and UNII-8 sub-bands and various channel widths. Source: NetAlly
320 MHz Channels Like a truck can carry more boxes than a sedan, bigger Wi-Fi channels transmit more data than smaller ones, increasing throughput. Thus, Wi-Fi 7 introduces 320 MHz channel widths (a total of three in the countries that allow the use of the entire 6 GHz band), which technically doubles the amount of data that can be transmitted when compared to networks using 160 MHz channel widths (Figure 2). 1.2 GHz worth of spectrum in the 6 GHz band makes 320 MHz channels possible and allows for more access points (AP) to operate in congested sites.
4K QAM With Wi-Fi 7, there is a new 4096-QAM modulation option, which enables Wi-Fi signals to embed greater amounts of data more densely when compared to the 1024-QAM supported by Wi-Fi 6/6E (Figure 3). This would be analogous to being able to pack more items into a box that was already full by reorganizing what was inside it more efficiently. This improvement allows Wi-Fi 7 devices to transmit 20 percent more data, which helps to increase throughput.
FIGURE 1: A comparison table highlighting the significant speed and performance advancements across Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6/6E, and the upcoming Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) standards, showcasing the evolution of wireless technology and its increased data rates. Source: NetAlly
FIGURE 3: Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and its evolution across different Wi-Fi standards, specifically showing how higher orders of QAM allow for more data to be transmitted per symbol, leading to increased data rates. Source: NetAlly
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ICT TODAY
October/November/December 2025
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