We then performed several tests with each different configuration on the router to see how it would affect the speeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The test results made it immediately evident that using the 6GHz band had a significantly larger influence on performance than other factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only a subset of the frequencies in the 6GHz band has been made available for Wi-Fi use in South Africa, and very few devices actually use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This means there is much less interference compared to the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands available on most Wi-Fi equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The table below summarises the common names used for Wi-Fi standards, together with the bands and features they support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We used a Cudy WR11000 Tri-band Wi-Fi 7 router and a Gigabyte GC-WIFI7 networking card to test and compare the different Wi-Fi standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Cudy router is easy to set up and supports all three bands with independent settings for each. It also supports multi-link operation and theoretical speeds over 10 Gbps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For all the testing, the Wi-Fi router was set up as an access point, two rooms away from the computer with the Wi-Fi 7 networking card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A 400\/400 Mbps fibre service was used to test the Wi-Fi connection’s Internet performance, and a Synology NAS was connected to the router for file transfers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, the NAS only supported gigabit networking and was unable to make full use of the 2.5G ports on the router.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We achieved the best Internet speeds using the default Wi-Fi 7 settings on the 6GHz band, matching the speeds recorded over our gigabit Ethernet connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Using the Wi-Fi 6e standard on 6GHz also yielded great results, albeit with poorer upload speeds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 5GHz band also performed well with both Wi-Fi 6 and 7 standards. However, speeds degraded significantly when using the Wi-Fi 5 standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly, multi-link operation did not manage to reach the same speeds as the Ethernet and 6GHz connections, even when it also harnessed the 6GHz band.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our results also showed the significant impact of using the congested 2.4 GHz band, where the highest speeds achieved were less than 10% of what was possible with our connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After maxing out our Internet connection, we attempted to do the same over our local network, beginning with file transfers over the gigabit Ethernet connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We tested the transfer speeds between a Synology NAS and the test computer by transferring large files between the two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the NAS was limited by a gigabit Ethernet port, we achieved a maximum speed of 904Mbps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here, the multi-link Wi-Fi connection came into its own, easily matching the baseline set using an Ethernet cable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was achieved by linking all three bands, and it is likely that even faster transfer speeds could have been achieved if the NAS had 2.5G Ethernet capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n MyBroadband tested modern Wi-Fi standards and found that having access to the 6 GHz frequency band made a greater difference than whether you use Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341074,"featured_media":616685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[102050,749,80327],"class_list":["post-616317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wireless","tag-802-11be","tag-wi-fi","tag-wi-fi-7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341074"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616317"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616770,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616317\/revisions\/616770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Wi-Fi standard<\/th> IEEE standard<\/th> 2.4 GHz<\/th> 5 GHz<\/th> 6 GHz<\/th> Max bandwidth<\/th> Theoretical max data rate<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> 4<\/td> 802.11n<\/td> Yes<\/td> Yes<\/td> No<\/td> 40 MHz<\/td> 600 Mbps<\/td><\/tr> 5<\/td> 802.11ac<\/td> No<\/td> Yes<\/td> No<\/td> 160 MHz<\/td> 6,933 Mbps<\/td><\/tr> 6<\/td> 802.11ax<\/td> Yes<\/td> Yes<\/td> No<\/td> 160 MHz<\/td> 11,000 Mbps<\/td><\/tr> 6e<\/td> 802.11ax<\/td> Yes<\/td> Yes<\/td> Yes<\/td> 160 MHz<\/td> 11,000 Mbps<\/td><\/tr> 7<\/td> 802.11be<\/td> Yes<\/td> Yes<\/td> Yes<\/td> 320 MHz<\/td> 23,059 Mbps<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Test equipment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Internet connectivity over Wi-Fi results<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/WiFi7-Router.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Wifi7-pcie.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nConnection type<\/th> Download speed (Mbps)<\/th> Upload speed (Mbps)<\/th> Latency (ms)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Ethernet<\/td> 434.1<\/td> 416.0<\/td> 3.0<\/td><\/tr> 6G BE (7)<\/td> 431.7<\/td> 401.8<\/td> 5.3<\/td><\/tr> 6G AX (6)<\/td> 424.1<\/td> 268.5<\/td> 5.0<\/td><\/tr> 5G AC (5)<\/td> 380.0<\/td> 290.6<\/td> 5.7<\/td><\/tr> 5G BE (7)<\/td> 379.0<\/td> 376.9<\/td> 5.3<\/td><\/tr> MLO 2.4+5+6 (7)<\/td> 373.2<\/td> 394.2<\/td> 5.7<\/td><\/tr> 5G AX (6)<\/td> 361.0<\/td> 372.1<\/td> 6.0<\/td><\/tr> MLO 2.4+5 (7)<\/td> 353.4<\/td> 93.8<\/td> 5.7<\/td><\/tr> 5G N (4)<\/td> 199.3<\/td> 143.2<\/td> 4.7<\/td><\/tr> 2.4 BGN (4)<\/td> 34.1<\/td> 22.4<\/td> 5.3<\/td><\/tr> 2.4 AX (6)<\/td> 28.4<\/td> 29.9<\/td> 5.3<\/td><\/tr> 2.4 BE (7)<\/td> 20.7<\/td> 11.4<\/td> 6.0<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Local area network speeds over Wi-Fi<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Connection type<\/th> Transfer speed (Mbps)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead> Ethernet<\/td> 904<\/td><\/tr> MLO<\/td> 904<\/td><\/tr> 6G<\/td> 824<\/td><\/tr> 5G<\/td> 584<\/td><\/tr> 2.4G<\/td> 136<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"