Wi-Fi 7 ready to hit the big time, org claims

Wi-Fi 7 is ready for its close-up.

Wi-Fi 7, the new (and much faster) version of the wireless standard that’s a prime candidate to support multi-gigabit broadband services, has opened up certification testing for a wave of new products, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced Monday.

The certification milestone, announced in concert with this week’s CES 2024 in Las Vegas, should pave the way for Wi-Fi 7 to be built into a wide range of premium level wireless devices, including access points and smartphones, and then start to infiltrate the market further and replace Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E as the de facto choice among manufacturers.

“It’s a signal that [Wi-Fi 7] is going mainstream,” proclaimed Andy Davidson, senior director of engineering at Qualcomm and a member of the Wi-Fi Alliance board of directors. “What Wi-Fi Alliance certification tends to signify is there’s enough vendors with products that are interoperable that you can expect this to become the mainstream of Wi-Fi devices very quickly.”

Companies in the newly established Wi-Fi 7 certification “test bed” include a handful of silicon makers – Broadcom, Intel, MaxLinear, MediaTek and Qualcomm – and one original equipment manufacturer (CommScope). That test bed will form the basis for Wi-Fi 7 certifications going forward.

The companies in the test bed are also among the first to receive Wi-Fi 7 certification, the Wi-Fi Alliance said.

Other companies providing supporting quotes in today’s announcement include Boingo Wireless, Extreme Networks, Spirent Communications and Ruckus Networks (a unit of CommScope).

Among the chipmaker group tied into the test bed, Qualcomm, Davidson said, already has more than 450 Wi-Fi 7 design wins launched or in the process of being launched, including north of 200 client designs (such as smartphones and PCs/laptops) as well as more than 250 access point and router designs.

“We believe there’s tremendous pull for this technology,” Davidson said.

IDC forecasts there will be 230 million Wi-Fi 7 devices in the market by the end of the year and balloon to more than 2 billion by 2028.

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