WiFi 6 vs WiFi 7 | Difference between WiFi 6 and WiFi 7
This page compares WiFi 6 vs WiFi 7 and mentions similarities and difference between WiFi 6 and WiFi 7.
Introduction:
IEEE develops wifi standards which are specified in 802.11 series with suffix as b, g, n, ac, ax and be.
WiFi alliance certifies the products developed as per these wifi standards. WiFi 7 is the future of wifi standard which is being designed to
support real time applications of the future which include video streaming, wireless gaming, telemedicine,
edge/cloud computing, AR/VR, industrial IoT, voice/video conferencing and so on.
What is WiFi 6 ?
WiFi 6 follows IEEE 802.11ax specifications which has been introduced in 2019. The standard has been rectified and wifi 6 based devices are commercially at this moment. The wifi 6 technology supports 40% faster data rate than its previous version wifi 5. It supports 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency bands. The wifi 6E extends use of wifi in 6 GHz bands. The suffice "E" in "WiFi 6E" refers to "Extended".
Image Courtesy: Ruckus Networks
Following are the features of WiFi-6 technology.
• Higher modulation scheme up to 1024-QAM
• Long OFDM symbol
• MU-MIMO in UL/DL, 8 simultaneous MU-MIMO streams
• Beamforming and OFDMA technique
• Uplink scheduling without any contention
• BSS color codes
• Refer WiFi 6 tutorial >> and
difference between WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E >> versions.
What is WiFi 7 ?
IEEE is developing wifi 7 specifications under the series 802.11be. It will support double bandwidth and higher spatial streams compare to 802.11ax version. WiFi 7 will support data rate as high as 40 Gbps. It is expected to be launched in the year 2024. It is being developed by IEEE 802.11be EHT working group.
The main features of WiFi 7 are as follows.
➨Coordinated Multi-user MIMO to support 16 data streams at the same time
➨Multi Link Operation (MLO) to enable simultaneous transmission and reception across various bands/channels.
It increases throughput, lowers latency and improves reliability.
➨Access Point coordination
➨Supports maximum channel size up to 320 MHz
➨Supports higher modulation schemes up to 4096 QAM with enhanced OFDMA
Difference between Wifi 6 and Wifi 7
Following table uses various parameters to derive similarities and difference between Wifi 6 and Wifi 7 technologies.
| Features | WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E | WiFi 7 |
|---|---|---|
| • Standard | IEEE 802.11ax | IEEE 802.11be |
| • Launch date | 2019 (WiFi 6), 2021 (WiFi 6E) | 2024 |
| • Data rate (Maximum) | 9.6 Gbps | 46 Gbps |
| • Frequency Bands | 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz , 6 GHz (supported by WiFi 6E) | 1 to 7.25 GHz (Includes all the three bands viz. 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz) |
| • Security | WPA 3 | WPA 3 |
| • Channel Size | 20, 40, 80, 80+80, 160 MHz | Up to 320 MHz |
| • Modulation | 1024 QAM with OFDMA | 4096 QAM with OFDMA (extensions) |
| • MIMO | Supports MU-MIMO i.e. Multi-User MIMO, Eight data streams simultaneously | Supports CMU-MIMO i.e. Coordinated Multi-User MIMO, 16 data streams on all three frequencies simultaneously. |
| • Resource Allocation | Single RU | Multi-RU |
References : IEEE, WiFi Alliance, Intel Corporation.
Refer advantages or benefits of WiFi 7 technology >>.
WiFi 6 Resources as per IEEE 802.11ax
Advantages and disadvantages of 802.11ac (WiFi 5) Advantages and disadvantages of 802.11ax (WiFi 6) BSS coloring in 11ax RU in 802.11ax MU-OFDMA in 802.11ax MU-MIMO in 802.11ax Difference between 802.11ac Wave1 and Wave2 Difference between 802.11n,11ac,11ad WLAN 802.11ac tutorial WLAN 802.11ax tutorial WLAN 802.11ac frame structure WLAN 802.11ac Physical Layer 802.11ac MAC Layer 802.11ax basics WLAN 11a,11b,11n,11ac frame structures
Useful Links to Legacy WLAN Standards
WLAN SIFS, PIFS, DIFS, EIFS, AIFS What is DCF and PCF in WLAN What is RTS and CTS in WLAN What is wlan? WLAN standards-11a,11b,11g,11n,11ac 11a WLAN Physical layer 11b WLAN Physical layer 11n WLAN Physical layer WLAN basic tutorial 802.11ac tutorial 802.11ad tutorial Difference between 11a,11b,11g,11n Difference between 11-n,11-ac and 11-ad WLAN router providers WLAN providers
5G cellular resources
5G basic tutorial 5G Frequency Bands 5G millimeter wave tutorial 5G mm wave frame 5G millimeter wave channel sounding Difference between 4G and 5G 5G testing and test equipments 5G network architecture 5G NR Physical layer 5G NR MAC layer 5G NR RLC layer 5G NR PDCP layer
What is Difference between
Difference between OFDM and OFDMA Difference between SC-FDMA and OFDM Difference between SISO and MIMO Difference between TDD and FDD FDMA vs TDMA vs CDMA FDM vs TDM CDMA vs GSM
IoT Wireless Technologies
➤WLAN ➤THREAD ➤EnOcean ➤LoRa ➤SIGFOX ➤WHDI ➤Zigbee ➤6LoWPAN ➤Zigbee RF4CE ➤Z-Wave ➤NFC ➤RFID ➤INSTEON