Wi-Fi 7 has not yet been widely adopted, but Wi-Fi 8 is already in development , with a focus on improving reliability. One potential enabler of further throughput is mmWave, although its use has not yet been confirmed. One of the world’s largest Wi-Fi chip suppliers, MediaTek , is involved in the development of Wi-Fi 8 and wrote in its white paper late last year : “Wi-Fi 8 prioritizes one aspect of wireless communications that is becoming increasingly critical: reliability. While 802.11be, commercially known as Wi-Fi 7, was characterized as “Extremely High Throughput,” 802.11bn, which is expected to be adopted as Wi-Fi 8, is focused on “Ultra High Reliability . ”
The first products with support for Wi-Fi 8 wireless networks are expected by the end of 2027. Wi-Fi 8 will be backward compatible with all previous Wi-Fi standards. Ultra-high communication stability and reliability will be achieved through new technologies that better coordinate work between routers/mesh systems and client devices, extend the range and further reduce signal latency compared to Wi-Fi 7, as stated in the document. A reduction in power consumption is also planned.
Ultra-low latency will benefit high-quality video streaming, cloud gaming (Xbox Cloud, Nvidia GeForce Now) and immersive video formats like Apple Vision Pro. It will also make it more practical to connect video devices wirelessly instead of using cables like HDMI.
The technical specification for the Wi-Fi 8 wireless networking standard is not yet final, so some technologies may be added or excluded before it is approved. mmWave (24+ GHz) is seen as a trump card – according to some proposals, this technology can theoretically increase throughput to 100 Gbps, although the actual speed will be much lower.
As a reminder, Wi-Fi 6 was later expanded to Wi-Fi 6E with support for an additional 6 GHz band. Coordinated Multi-AP was originally planned for Wi-Fi 7 but was moved to Wi-Fi 8. This technology allows multiple routers in a single mesh network to jointly manage traffic, improving the speed and performance of the network as a whole. Users with a large number of devices can expect faster speeds on Wi-Fi 8 compared to Wi-Fi 7, all other things being equal.
Wi-Fi continues to replace wired connections. According to MediaTek , there are more than 21.1 billion Wi-Fi devices in use worldwide, of which 269 million support Wi-Fi 7 . With each new generation, Wi-Fi solves more and more problems that previously required a wired connection.
