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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

#41

Post by bjackman »

I recently upgraded from a WiFi 5 router to a WiFi 7 one, and my bandwidth increase was a grand 0% (that's ok though I was actually just sick of my old router's shitty UI!)

There is about 10m and a brick wall between my AP and my desk so yeah, a fancy new MCS that can theoretically deliver 25Gbps was just never gonna be useful to me.

Also I've worked on (other non-WiFi) 802.11 products where our competitive edge was all about interference motivation. Our competitors at trade shows would see the demos and say "that's fake, you guys are cheating". So I have the feeling that in general there might be alpha in more resilient wireless links.

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

#42

Post by gib444 »

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...

5GHz? Surely you mean 5000000kHz ;P

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

#43

Post by abhinavk »

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…

Ensure your network has no <WiFi6 devices.

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

#44

Post by eviks »

bjackman wrote: post #41

I recently upgraded from a WiFi 5 router to a WiFi 7 one, and my bandwidth increase was a grand 0% (that's ok though I was actually just sick of my old router's shitty UI!) There is about 10m and a brick wall between my AP and my desk so yeah, a fancy new MCS that can theoretically deliver 25Gbps was just never gonna be useful to me. Also I've worked on (other non-WiFi) 802.11 products where our competitive edge was…

How often do you see your router's UI to justify any change?

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

#45

Post by euduhdhbene »

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…

I was recently made aware of WiFi HaLow. Official standard, ranges into the hundreds of meters. Speed suffers at long ranges of course, but still respectable (50-100kbs).

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ah

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

#46

Post by mschuster91 »

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…

> or being thrown into a reconnect loop when the AP tries to get them to roam

The AP does not have visibility into what the client actually sees, and no, a coordinator that has knowledge what the APs see isn't that much better.

Imagine a situation with two APs and a client being in the middle of the two in a RF-impeded situation (i.e. your typical office building). AP1 may "hear" the client better (i.e. it gets a higher RSSI and SNR), but the client may reject it in favor of AP2 because the client sees a better signal coming from AP2 due to reflections, a powerful RF signal from a floor above interfering with the channel of AP1 or God knows what else.

RF is a weird world.

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

#47

Post by indemnity »

robertlagrant wrote: post #40
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.

I put in 2 CAT6 wires to every room in the house (4 in my office, 4 in garage), with one big PoE switch in the garage.

Everything with an Ethernet port is wired, wifi is for phones and tablets only (a few UniFi WiFi 6 APS).

Works great!

Internet has never dropped for me while working, family loves the always working NAS streaming via wired Apple TV.

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

#48

Post by afavour »

abhinavk wrote: post #43
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…

Ensure your network has no <WiFi6 devices.

Easier said than done when you’re dealing with warehouse equipment.

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

#49

Post by mschuster91 »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #32
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.

> Higher speeds are a bit pointless for most users.

Higher speeds automatically means less latency and that does matter, especially if you are into stuff like games where every millisecond matters.

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

#50

Post by BlackRabbit1 »

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

That's not controlled, seamless hand-over as we know it from GSM/3G/LTE/5G for 30 years now.

We basically miss all data (received stations/signal levels from both sides, Bit Rate errors, etc.) for making roaming decisions and then to softly connect them to an AP you want them to be on.

Enterprise WiFi is currently mostly "This is a list of APs you maybe can connect to.. have fun.. if you can connect we pre-seeded the AP with some crypto data, so it doesn't take ages to negotiate. Here's your (more or less friendly) disassoc. Fuck off bye."

It does somehow work for stationary setups - but as soon as you have mobile traffic (like walking around or machines moving) with multiple APs the quality hits the shitter brutally.

Currently this gap is being filled by industrial 5G with dedicated frequencies. It's crazy expensive.

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