WiFi 7 is still not widely adopted, but the industry is already working on WiFi 8 with a focus on ultra-high reliability. A wildcard is mmWave, which could boost bandwidth, too.
One of the world's largest WiFi chip suppliers, MediaTek, is involved in the development of WiFi 8 and wrote the following in a white paper late last year:
- "Wi-Fi 8 prioritizes one aspect of wireless communication that has become increasingly critical: reliability. Whereas 802.11be, which became commercialized as Wi-Fi 7, was termed 'Extremely High Throughput', 802.11bn, which is expected to be accepted as Wi-Fi 8, is focused on 'Ultra High Reliability'."
Extremely reliable, even lower latency
The first products with WiFi 8 are expected to arrive by the end of 2027. Naturally, WiFi 8 will be backward compatible with previous WiFi standards.
"Extremely" high stability and reliability are to be achieved through new technologies that better coordinate between routers/mesh and devices, extend range, and further reduce signal latency compared to WiFi 7, the whitepaper explained. There is also a focus on reducing power consumption.
The ultra-low latency will benefit high-quality video streaming, cloud gaming such as Xbox Cloud and Nvidia GeForce Now, and immersive video like on Apple Vision Pro. It will also make it more feasible to connect video devices wirelessly instead of using cables such as HDMI.
Specification still not locked
The specification for WiFi 8 is not yet finalized, so technologies may still be added or removed before it is locked in.
A wildcard is mmWave (24+ GHz), proposed by some parties. It could theoretically increase the bandwidth to 100 Gbps, although real-world performance would fall far short of that. You may recall that WiFi 6 was later expanded to WiFi 6E with support for the extra 6 GHz band.
Coordinated Multi-AP was originally intended for WiFi 7 but has been pushed to WiFi 8. It allows multiple routers in the same mesh network to coordinate traffic for improved speed and performance. Users with many devices can expect better speeds on WiFi 8 compared to WiFi 7, all else equal.
According to MediaTek, over 21.1 billion WiFi devices are in use, of which 269 million support WiFi 7. With each new generation, WiFi continues to replace more use cases that traditionally required wired connections.
WiFi 8 and previous WiFi standards
| WiFi 6
(802.11ax) | WiFi 6E
(802.11ax) | WiFi 7
(802.11be) | WiFi 8
(802.11bn) |
|---|
| Year | 2019 | 2020 (certified) | 2024 (certified) | 2027–2028 |
| Max theoretical speed | 9.6 Gbps | 9.6 Gbps | 46 Gbps | 46 Gbps (100 Gbps with mmWave) |
| Frequency bands | 2.4, 5GHz | 2.4, 5, 6GHz | 2.4, 5, 6GHz | 2.4, 5, 6GHz (maybe mmWave) |
| Modulation | 1024-QAM | 1024-QAM | 4096-QAM | 4096-QAM (new MCS proposed) |
| MIMO streams | Up to 8 spatial streams | Up to 8 spatial streams | Up to 16 spatial streams | Up to 16 spatial streams |
| Multi-user features | MU-MIMO, OFDMA | MU-MIMO, OFDMA | MU-MIMO, OFDMA, MLO, Multi-RU | Enhanced MU-MIMO, MLO, Coordinated Multi-AP, DSO/NPCA (expected) |
| Latency | Improved vs. WiFi 5 | Improved vs. WiFi 5 | Significantly lower | Ultra-low latency (expected) |
| Key technologies | OFDMA, TWT, BSS Coloring | OFDMA, TWT, BSS Coloring (6GHz support) | 4K-QAM, 320 MHz channels, MLO | Co-SR, Co-BF, new MCS, DSO, Coordinated Multi-AP (expected) |
| Use cases | 4K streaming, gaming, IoT | 4K streaming, gaming, IoT (6GHz) | 8K streaming, VR/AR, dense networks | Beyond 8K, advanced AR/VR, large-scale IoT (expected) |
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