Wireless networking at home and work looks set to get better overall, with the next generation aiming to be faster and more reliable.
The world of WiFi 7 is only just beginning to arrive in Australian homes, but don’t let that stop developers from thinking what’s next. And what is next? WiFi 8.
The next generation of the technology is still very much in its infancy and planning, but chip-maker MediaTek is already working to tighten the next standard, 802.11bn also known as “WiFi 8”.
It’s the successor to the current 802.11be or “WiFi 7”, and while faster speeds are more or less a guaranteed, as are the continued uses of WiFi 6E’s radio frequencies in the 2.4, 5, and 6GHz bands (also used in WiFi 7), more will be part of the standard.
Expected to support a maximum bitrate of 100 Gbps, roughly equating 12GB per second (yikes!), WiFi 8 is also being called the “Ultra High Reliability” standard and may really on similar technologies to 5G, such as mmWave (millimetre wave), which may help it deal with long reaches and weather conditions when used by large sites. You might not think of WiFi at home for this, but rather WiFi in stadiums and cities, handy when traditional mobile is overwhelmed.
According to a paper by MediaTek, WiFi 8 “aims to enhance effective and reliable communication”, using a combination of featured that have evolved over the past 20 years of WiFi, and has an expected approval date of September 2028.
That means companies have some time before WiFi 8 becomes anything more than ideas, conversation, experiments, and planning, with the company noting that WiFi standards typically run for about six years.
As it is, WiFi 7 has just really started arriving in cost-effective options this year after being finalised in 2022 and seeing expensive first generations the following year, so while WiFi 8 may well be finalised in 2028, we might not see WiFi 8 routers and in phones and computers until 2029.
In short, if you were thinking of upgrading to WiFi 7 and were worried about the next big thing, you have time. WiFi 7 isn’t going anywhere, at least for another five or six years, it seems.
