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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

#81
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most don't want you to setup your own APN ;-)

That's a standard IoT usecase almost all telcos offer. We have industrial SIMs with our own APN and get a IPSec tunnel to the Telco where we have a dedicated network to see our devices.

We have about 20 client devices, I would very much prefer to throw a bunch of APs into the warehouse and it just works - DECT can do it, so wifi should, too. I'd settle for 10mbit/s!

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

#82

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…

For a while I had wireless mesh networking in my new house, until I finally got around to pulling fiber to get a proper 10Gbps backbone. Upgrading from my UniFi WiFi6E AP to a WiFi 7 doubled my effective throughput as measured by SpeedTest. This in a 1930s house with solid brick construction.

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

#83
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.

If you're using a Mac, it could be from the brain-dead way Apple OSes implement WiFi based geolocation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356730

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

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> which indeed no device currently supports Aren't devices with Intel Wi-Fi 7 BE200/BE202 are supporting that? As well as latest Samsung phones?

AFAIR: the BE200/B202 only have one radio. So no parallel streams on two frequencies.

But they are the best cards around if you want to play with Wifi-7 on Linux. But always go for the latest wireless-next kernel + firmware blobs. Also they are not compatible with AMD mainboards (go for Qualcomm then).

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not really how latency works though.

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

#86

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 hig…

I'm no RF expert, and we're not a big company. I wear many hats, from DBA to local WiFi expert. And while there are certainly limits to what can be achieved without dedicated experts, I want to stress how DECT in the very same scenario just delivers unwavering reliable operation without me ever giving a hoot about RF interference or 802.11k or r or any other implementation detail.

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

#87
post #36

> (…) while further increments have been smaller in percentage, speeds have always increased very significantly. Off topic, but that sounds sort of contradictory, or misleading at the very least.

Well, if the first increment is 100%, you only need 50% the next time to get the same absolute increase as the first time. And then 33%, and so on.

That's how I read it at least.

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

#88

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…

Warehouses, factories, etc need private 5G, not Wi-Fi.

I know what you are trying to say.

But they do use commercial wi-fi devices, albeit with a focus on configuring security correctly.

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

#89
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.

I wired up my office, and thr speed test after was slower than on wifi. haven't had a chance to debug it yet, but it's something to consider.

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

#90

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

Dead outside the US unfortunately, worse range than regular wifi due to being strangled by lower channel width and ridicolously low power limits. The two bulky HaLowLink routers are the only off the shelf thing with support for it, it's nonexistent as a wifi standard.

I was so excited when I discovered it a few months back after struggling for years to set up reliable wifi for outdoor robotics, only to realize we can't have nice things. The struggle continues.

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