Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
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Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
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Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#2Makes sense since a lot of networks don't have access to speed. The highest speeds in my area are around 150MBps, so 5-6GBps or whatever is a perfectly fine upper bound for me. Range and congestion however has been an issue.
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#3The peak-speed arms race stopped being interesting to me a while ago. I don't need 20+ Gbit/s theoretical Wi-Fi. I need the connection to stay boring when I'm at the edge of coverage or the neighbours are hammering the same spectrum.
The 95th-percentile latency and packet-loss targets here seem much more meaningful than another 2x headline speed increase.
My only scepticism is how much of this survives real consumer hardware. Wi-Fi 6 had things like OFDMA that sounded great on paper, but support/implementation was pretty uneven.
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#4Oh no. I haven't even upgraded to WiFi 7 yet!
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#5Oh no. I haven't even upgraded to WiFi 7 yet!
I have a Wi-Fi 7 AP and this confused some members of my family that didn't even know it went higher than 6. I thought it was pretty funny
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#6Oh no. I haven't even upgraded to WiFi 7 yet!
You are not missing too much.
One of the core features (MLO) is currently mostly scam. APs/Clients negotiate the protocol (and it shows up in the status) but doesn't it to either increase robustness or bandwidth (by combining/switching between two frequency bands).
Also the driver quality is a huge mess.
(We tested it using the latest generation Cisco Enterprise gear but also with Prosumer stuff like Ubiquiti or TP-Link)
But honestly: we need WiFi-8. It finally brings infrastructure-controlled roaming which is super important for any VoIP service.
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#7Makes sense since a lot of networks don't have access to speed. The highest speeds in my area are around 150MBps, so 5-6GBps or whatever is a perfectly fine upper bound for me. Range and congestion however has been an issue.
You used the wrong units there. Should be Mbps and Gbps.
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#8Oh no. I haven't even upgraded to WiFi 7 yet!
The upgrade to 6E was a big jump in my network (Wifi7 Unifi Wall AP). On the same spot, the M3 MacBook (6E) has basically zero lag over VNC, while the M1 MacBook (6) has a noticeable lag. It’s a bit mind blowing how big the difference is.
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#9Makes sense since a lot of networks don't have access to speed. The highest speeds in my area are around 150MBps, so 5-6GBps or whatever is a perfectly fine upper bound for me. Range and congestion however has been an issue.
You used the wrong units there. Should be Mbps and Gbps.
I did not use the wrong units, I converted them. The speeds available in my area currently max out at 1.2Gbps which is 150MBps.
Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed
#10Makes sense. Last router upgrade I reached the point where my wifi speeds (at least near the router) were indistinguishable from plugging into gigabit ethernet - that's fast enough for any home task, and the same speed as my fibre uplink. I can't see chasing speed further, outside of very specialised setups.