Wifi Part 3. How WiFi7 (802.11be) Can Offers High Throughput with MLO, MU-MIMO, Multi-RU & Multi-AP.
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The recent surge in people working from home highlights the importance of Wi-Fi connectivity. Not only does it provide data and connections to office networks, but it is also increasingly utilized for video conferencing to connect remote workers and facilitate online meetings, serving as substitutes for face-to-face interactions and large conferences. The use of video traffic is expected to continue rising in the coming years, especially as applications such as VR/AR become more widespread. WLAN users will also anticipate a reliable, near real-time gaming and cloud computing experience.
Wi-Fi 6 has just been launched, but Wi-Fi 7 is already on the horizon as the next generation of Wi-Fi.
Key New Wi-Fi 7 Technologies
More Data Density:
Greater Channel Width:
MLO (Multi-Link Operation):
MU MIMO with 16 spatial streams:
Multi-RU (Puncturing):
Multi-AP operation:
More Data Density:
WiFi 7 increases the data capacity encoded onto a radio signal, measured by a standard known as Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM). While WiFi 6 had a QAM limit of 1024, WiFi 7 boasts an impressive 4096 (also referred to as 4K QAM), significantly boosting peak rates and enhancing throughput. With each symbol now capable of carrying 12 bits instead of 10, theoretical transmission rates see a notable 20% increase.
Greater Channel Width:
Each WiFi band operates in smaller bands of 20/40/80/160MHz for connecting to individual devices. WiFi 7 doubles the bandwidth to 320MHz. This effectively doubles the WiFi speeds to individual devices and adds a lot more bandwidth to support additional devices.
MLO (Multi-Link Operation):
Currently, routers can support multiple WiFi bands- 2.4, 5 & 6GHz, but WiFi clients connect using one of the WiFi bands. With WiFi 7, routers will be able to connect across three different bands to a client device.
Imagine three highways leading to your destination. MLO is similar to giving these highways the flexibility to either spread the traffic across routes or to quickly move traffic from one highway to another if one gets congested.
MU MIMO with 16 spatial streams:
MIMO, Multiple-Input Multiple-Output, refers to the utilization of multiple transmitting & receiving antennas to enable continuous transmission & reception of signals between transmitter and receiver. This technology optimizes spatial resources to double the system's channel capacity without requiring additional spectrum resources or antenna transmission power. It is considered the core technology of next-generation mobile communication.
For end devices such as laptops or smartphones, those that support WiFi typically have at least one antenna. Devices equipped with multiple antennas are capable of supporting MIMO. If a router has two antennas to support 5GHz WiFi, it is generally said to support 2×2 MIMO. Similarly, routers with three antennas support 3×3 MIMO, those with four antennas support 4×4 MIMO, and so on. For instance, WiFi 7 routers can support up to 16×16 MIMO.
Multi-RU (Puncturing):
A key limitation of WiFi is that any interference affects the entire channel. However, with 'puncturing,' if a portion of a channel is impacted by interference, only that portion can be blocked while the rest of the channel continues to be used for data transfer. This makes WiFi more resistant to interference and ensures that critical flow and latency are not affected. To illustrate, imagine a highway: with WiFi 6, a pothole in a lane renders that lane unusable, but with WiFi 7, you can block off the pothole, drive around it, and still utilize the rest of the lane.
Multi-AP operation:
WiFi 7 discusses features aimed at enhancing the operational efficiency of adjacent access points. This enables the more efficient utilization of spectrum resources and enhances throughput.
Coordinated transmission (CT) allows for the sharing of spectrum resources in either the time or frequency domain between a primary access point (AP) and one or more secondary Aps.
It might also be worthwhile to coordinate beamforming between adjacent APs. This can be achieved by forming spatial radiation nulls (null beams) to non-associated STAs in the neighborhood. Doing so allows simultaneous transmission at the same frequency resource.
The most complex feature under discussion is likely the joined transmission (c), wherein multiple Access Points (APs) transmit/receive to/from one or multiple stations using the same frequency in a distributed Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) scheme