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

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201–210 of 295 posts

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

#201

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…

What kind of WiFi 7? (There are a lot that don't have 6GHz support). You should get far better performance on 6GHz, though there are harsh power limits in most countries with various ways to enable it which may complicate things. But if you can get full power on 6GHz it should reach 10m no issues at all, and with 320MHz should be at least twice as fast. If you can also get MLO working (which is not simple) you'd be a…

It's a Unifi Dream Router 7. The 6GHz doesn't reach through the wall IIRC

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

#202
Having WiFi 8 (or even 7) on your access point is only really useful if you have a population of clients that can use the features it offers. I regularly sample the devices attached to residential wifi routers and the facts are grim: in a house of 40+ devices, two can do wifi 7, about 10% can do 6Ghz, 50 to 60% can do 5GHz but not 6GHz, and a core rump of 50% of the devices are stuck on 2.4GHz. I suspect this is because all those cheap smart home things like roku sticks and pet feeders and so on are built for cost and a decent 5Ghz chip is just too much to ask.

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

#203
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of WiFi 7? (There are a lot that don't have 6GHz support). You should get far better performance on 6GHz, though there are harsh power limits in most countries with various ways to enable it which may complicate things. But if you can get full power on 6GHz it should reach 10m no issues at all, and with 320MHz should be at least twice as fast. If you can also get MLO working (which is not simple) you'd be a…

Why would 6GHz make such a difference compared to 5GHz?

Because it supports (on WiFi 7) 320MHz channels. So there is double the bandwidth. 5GHz only supports 160MHz channels.

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

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of WiFi 7? (There are a lot that don't have 6GHz support). You should get far better performance on 6GHz, though there are harsh power limits in most countries with various ways to enable it which may complicate things. But if you can get full power on 6GHz it should reach 10m no issues at all, and with 320MHz should be at least twice as fast. If you can also get MLO working (which is not simple) you'd be a…

The brick wall will prevent any and all 6GHz penetration.

Not at higher power output, which that router doesn't support.

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

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of WiFi 7? (There are a lot that don't have 6GHz support). You should get far better performance on 6GHz, though there are harsh power limits in most countries with various ways to enable it which may complicate things. But if you can get full power on 6GHz it should reach 10m no issues at all, and with 320MHz should be at least twice as fast. If you can also get MLO working (which is not simple) you'd be a…

It's a Unifi Dream Router 7. The 6GHz doesn't reach through the wall IIRC

That doesn't support high power 6GHz (called standard power/AFC). You need one that does support that to get the (much) higher 6GHz transmit power.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another one for you: today I found out that my dual-sim android phone has a single radio that is shared between the two sims. So when you are on a call, the 4G/5G doesn't work on the other sim, likewise, sometimes the the voice sim is unavailable while the other sim engaged with 4G/5G things... which is just stupid. Can't they just add two radios/chips (like many wifi AP's....)? So the whole setup on a consume…

An additional radio would raise the price of your phone for at least another 200 or 300 dollars. Try to enable VoLTE if available for your operator. That makes the phone use the LTE connection for voice and don't drop the Internet connection while you talk.

You can get an additional phone with a screen, 5g radio, ram and everything for $150. An additional radio should not raise the price for another 300.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another one for you: today I found out that my dual-sim android phone has a single radio that is shared between the two sims. So when you are on a call, the 4G/5G doesn't work on the other sim, likewise, sometimes the the voice sim is unavailable while the other sim engaged with 4G/5G things... which is just stupid. Can't they just add two radios/chips (like many wifi AP's....)? So the whole setup on a consume…

Voice is normally done using VoLTE now.

Not for everyone in many places. Many carriers still only allow VoLTE for a limited alow-list of phone models. Any customers of those with less popular models still gets dropped to 3G calls.

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

#209
post #199

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…

> We need reliable, real-world ~20mbit/s for our warehouse scanners, not 382722 theoretical Gbit/s 5cm from the access point Those two are the same thing, though! Literally nobody is hitting those insane theoretical transmission speeds. Heck, most access points don't even have the uplink for it. So why bother? Easy: because it provides you margin . A 10Gbps link degrading to 100Mbps due to poor signal quality is a lo…

"Hearing a person speaking really fast" and "picking out a voice in a crowded room" are two completely different things.

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

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Difficult within the EU due to ISM limits. Maybe ok for your garden camera where the authorities just don't care. But no go for any industrial usage.

The EU's ISM limits are trash.

Really there should be a world wide 900-1000MHz ISM band.

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