By Brian Van Meter at Grandstream
Wi-Fi technology is rapidly evolving to meet the ever-growing demand of an organization's wireless requirements. Offices, hotels, commercial environments, and industrial locations increasingly require a wireless network that can be deeply integrated into their operations. The Wi-Fi 7 standard (IEEE 802.11be) is packed with features that improve the total bandwidth a single access point can provide and make the standard a better choice for highly congested client deployments. Grandstream's new generation of Wi-Fi 7 access points is gradually being added to the GWN portfolio. Learn what they offer by reading this blog post.
One of the most significant new features that Wi-Fi 7 brings is multi-link operation (MLO). At its core, MLO improves the overall throughput of an access point by allowing client devices that support MLO to transmit and receive data over more than one band at the same time. By leveraging multiple bands, devices can experience higher aggregate speeds, which is ideal for bandwidth-heavy applications such as video streaming, exchanging data from cloud sources, online gaming, and more. Being able to take advantage of multiple bands simultaneously also reduces the impact of interference from other client devices in heavily congested wireless deployments and reduces latency for real-time communications. Additionally, MLO offers a more reliable connection in congested networks such as airports, trade show halls, stadiums, and other public venues. Simultaneous channel access means client devices can automatically determine which bands are less congested and smoothly switch bands without dropping the connection. Lastly, MLO operation can heavily impact MESH networks, since access points can communicate across multiple bands for greatly improved backend performance.
QAM (quadrature amplitude modulation) is the modulation method that Wi-Fi uses to encode digital information. In simple terms, QAM translates digital packets into an analog signal that can wirelessly transfer data. Wi-Fi 7 upgrades to 4096-QAM (4K-QAM) over Wi-Fi 6/6E's 1024-QAM, allowing each encoded symbol to carry 12 bits instead of 10 bits. This results in roughly 20% more data per symbol, which not only increases the overall throughput of the Wi-Fi access point but also significantly improves its spectral efficiency. In ideal signal environments, this helps Wi-Fi 7 APs outperform earlier Wi-Fi standards and comes together with other Wi-Fi 7 technologies to enhance the standard's already staggering speeds.
OFDMA and MU-MIMO are Wi-Fi 6 features that are both improved upon within the Wi-Fi 7 standard. OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiple access) directly impacts uplink and downlink streams and how client devices are connected to the access point and then given bandwidth prioritization. This is done by organizing bandwidth usage by client devices into resource units, or RUs. Resource units enable the access point to carry multiple services for different needs simultaneously. For Wi-Fi 7 specifically, multiple resource units (MRUs) can be assigned to each wireless client with no restrictions, meaning a single user can make up multiple resource units. This enables Wi-Fi 7 access point spectrums to be even more efficient when compared with previous standards, further improving wireless performance in high-density client deployments.
MU-MIMO (multi-user multiple-input multiple-output) enables devices to respond to access points simultaneously. The advantage of this is improved performance of each spatial stream. Each deployed access point experiences increased efficiency in environments with multiple simultaneous users, along with a slight decrease in client latency. For Wi-Fi 7 specifically, the spatial streams that make up MU-MIMO technology have been doubled to 16 streams, which significantly increases the number of simultaneous client devices a single Wi-Fi access point can efficiently communicate with.
Finally, one of the largest impacts of Wi-Fi 7 is the introduction of the 6 GHz band. The 6 GHz band doubles the channel bandwidth of the 5 GHz band from 160 MHz to 320 MHz, which drastically increases an access point's speed and simultaneous transmissions. Combined with multi-link operation, 4K-QAM, and improved OFDMA and MU-MIMO, a Wi-Fi 7 access point's 320 MHz band acts as an ultra-wide highway with high throughput for an organization's data. A wider band with faster data transmission also provides a lower latency experience, which is ideal for low-latency applications such as video streaming, congested home/office networks, and cloud services.
Wi-Fi 7 brings a lot to the table when it comes to wireless speeds and support for congested client environments. While Wi-Fi 7 isn't widely supported on all client devices yet, major manufacturers are quickly advancing to take advantage of the technological improvements that the new standard offers, making Wi-Fi 7 an excellent future-proof investment. High bandwidth and high-density client environments are ideal deployment scenarios for Wi-Fi 7 access points. Offices on a Wi-Fi infrastructure that heavily rely on videoconferencing and cloud-based real-time collaboration applications can see a significant improvement in network quality. Organizations that require high-speed device uploads and downloads, such as marketing firms, design houses, and entertainment studios, can use Wi-Fi 7 APs to improve work efficiency by dramatically reducing media and file transfer times. Finally, industrial deployments that rely heavily on IoT and robotic infrastructure can find an ultra-reliable and multi-link failover solution with the new wireless standard.
Note: this article was originally published on Grandstream's website.
For more details, visit TeleDynamics' website or watch the video below.
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