Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

xda-developers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 295 posts

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#31

Post by avhception »

MrGilbert wrote: post #28
avhception wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family doesn't know that the WiFi AP is not the DECT base. They understand when I tell them, but that's gone after a week. They use the words WiFi (or, as we say in Germany, WLAN) and "Internet" almost interchangeably. At work, too. "Internet kaputt" can mean anything from "my device is broken" to "our ERP app is not doing the right thing / responding too slow".

You can’t blame them, though. I live in the industry for over 25 years now, and when 5 Ghz wifi got introduced, and started to live alongside 2.4 Ghz with all the different protocols, I was like: "Nah. Screw it." I honestly have no idea what the current hot stuff in terms of wifi is.^^

Yeah, I guess I draw the line at the workplace. Some of these "Internet kaputt" cases turned out to be a rejected login to our bespoke ERP website.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#32

Post by WhyNotHugo »

LogTrim wrote: post #3

The 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…

Agree completely. Higher speeds are a bit pointless for most users. Unless you have an extremely fast NAS, where you need to copy (not stream) data over Wi-Fi, you're unlikely to be anywhere near the current limits.

I'm using 802.11ac and see no need for higher speeds.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#33

Post by blfr »

It's the first because we finally caught up on speed. We have it better than I imagined possible.

Last year, I saw 1600 Mbit/s from the Internet at a normie's place with an ISP-provided router. Still have a cat 6 cable around the living room but haven't used it in the last 2 years. Not exactly wifi but I routinely get 600-800 Mbit on 5g networks in crowded areas.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#34

Post by gpt5 »

LoganDark wrote: post #12
BlackRabbit1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-L…

It sounds like you're talking about throughput aggregation, which indeed no device currently supports. Not even Apple's most recent devices have any sign of it, except that M5 Pro/Max MacBook Pro models are tested for simultaneous transmission on 2.4+5GHz and 2.4+6GHz: https://mrncciew.com/2026/03/17/macbook-pro-m5-wi-fi-7-missi...

UniFi UDB-Switch has throughput aggregation for 5GHz + 6GHz.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#35

Post by JoshTriplett »

blfr wrote: post #33

It's the first because we finally caught up on speed. We have it better than I imagined possible. Last year, I saw 1600 Mbit/s from the Internet at a normie's place with an ISP-provided router. Still have a cat 6 cable around the living room but haven't used it in the last 2 years. Not exactly wifi but I routinely get 600-800 Mbit on 5g networks in crowded areas.

Ethernet isn't just about speed, it's about reliability. Before I wired my office, I regularly experienced latency spikes and hangs on video calls. After upgrading, I essentially never do.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#37

Post by jauntywundrkind »

avhception wrote: post #23

We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point. And roaming that works instead of stupid clients clinging to somewhere or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam. I know this is theoretically possible today. But in the real world, I have inherited the setup, so AP locations are fixed for now, clients are some…

DECT or DECT-NR+?

I do kind of want to play with this.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#38

Post by avhception »

greenavocado wrote: post #18
BlackRabbit1 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-L…

> infrastructure-controlled roaming 802.11 r/k/v exists

On paper, yes. In the real world, that random Android client is clinging to an AP that can barely hear it while a better one would be available.

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#39

Post by dmos62 »

avhception wrote: post #23

We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point. And roaming that works instead of stupid clients clinging to somewhere or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam. I know this is theoretically possible today. But in the real world, I have inherited the setup, so AP locations are fixed for now, clients are some…

Sounds like your old, random clients might be a problem?

Re: Wi-Fi 8 is the first wireless upgrade in years that isn't chasing speed

#40

Post by robertlagrant »

blfr wrote: post #33

It's the first because we finally caught up on speed. We have it better than I imagined possible. Last year, I saw 1600 Mbit/s from the Internet at a normie's place with an ISP-provided router. Still have a cat 6 cable around the living room but haven't used it in the last 2 years. Not exactly wifi but I routinely get 600-800 Mbit on 5g networks in crowded areas.

It's 2026 and I'm running more cat-6 in my home to all my static devices. My theory is using wires lowers wireless contention, leaving more WiFi for the mobile devices.
Post reply on HN