Intel preparing Wi-Fi 7 launch — what it will offer
Intel plans to launch the next generation of Wi-Fi in 2024, Korean IT publication ETNews reports.
Speaking at a press conference, Intel wireless solutions vice-president Eric McLaughlin said the company was developing Wi-Fi 7 (also known as 802.11be wireless LAN) to obtain Wi-Fi Alliance certification.
Installation in the first PC products, including laptops, is set for 2024, with the first devices expected to ship in major markets in 2025.
According to the report, Wi-Fi 7 offers a maximum speed of 5.8Gbps — double that of Wi-Fi 6. It also has nearly double the frequency bandwidth as its predecessor.
Wi-Fi 7 currently has a raw data rate of up to 46Gbps with 16 spatial streams defined in its specifications.
However, McLaughlin said the performance metrics could improve further because there was more than a year before the standard releases.
Intel believes Wi-Fi 7 will help support advanced bandwidth-intensitive technologies like cloud gaming, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).
The graph below shows some of the improvements that Wi-Fi 7 is envisioned to offer.
It might be some time after the launch of Wi-Fi 7 that South Africans can use the technology, as Wi-Fi 6E is not yet available locally.
Short for Wi-Fi 6 extended, the standard provides numerous 160MHz channels to offer the fastest Wi-Fi available with multi-gigabit, low latency connections.
Although several Wi-Fi 6E capable routers, smartphones, and laptops are already sold in the country, none benefit from their cutting-edge networking hardware because the frequency spectrum band needed for the standard is not yet open.
Instead, these devices are stuck using the 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands currently available to dual-band Wi-Fi devices.
The Wireless Access Providers Association (Wapa) has called on the government to exempt 1,200MHz of radio frequency spectrum from licensing to unlock the benefits of the new technology in South Africa.
A Wapa study in collaboration with the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance (DSA) found that enabling unlicensed usage of this spectrum could unlock $57.76 billion (R956 billion) in the South African economy over the next decade.
Now read: People in the Western Cape used 250,000 GB of free Wi-Fi in a month
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