Wi-Fi 7 MU-MIMO : Key Advantages

Introduction : As we know Wi-Fi 7 is the successor to Wi-Fi 6/6E. WiFi 7 is defined in IEEE 802.11be. It is also known as Extremely High Throughput (EHT). There are numerous enhancement in WiFi 7 and one such most important enhancement is implementation of MU-MIMO (Multi User Multiple Input Multiple Output).

WiFi 7 supports 46 Gbps compared to 9.6 Gbps supported by WiFi 6. It supports 6 GHz in addition to 2.4 and 5 GHz supported by previous versions. 320 MHz channel bandwidth is added in wifi 7 in addition to 20/40/80/160 MHz supported by previous standards. 4096QAN modulation is added in wifi-7. Moreover wifi-7 allows MLO (Multi-Link operation) so that devices can connect to multiple bands simultaneously.

What is Wi-Fi 7 MU-MIMO

• MIMO means multiple antennas on both access points (APs) and devices. These antennas can send/receive data streams simultaneously.
• MU-MIMO extends above feature further by allowing AP to communicate with multiple devices at the same time, instead of serving them one by one.

Example: Assume there are three devices A, B and C and an AP in a wi-fi network. In normal MIMO case, AP sends data to device A, then ‘B’ and then ‘C’. In MU-MIMO, the AP can send data to devices A, B and C at the same time, each on its own stream.

• Prior to Wi-Fi 5, devices supported SU-MIMO. WiFi 5 supports 4x4 MU-MIMO, WiFi-6/6E supports 8x8 MU-MIMO and WiFi 7 supports 16 spatial streams which doubles the capacity.

Figure-1 4x4 MU-MIMO in WiFi 5

Advantages of Wi-Fi 7 MU-MIMO

Following are some of the benefits of Wi-Fi 7 MU-MIMO feature.

1. Due to more simultaneous streams, Wi-Fi offer higher capacity & Speed. It supports multi-gigabit speeds per device, even in crowded environments.
2. It reduces wait time for devices to access AP. Hence efficiency improvement can be achieved. This is beneficial in dense environments such as stadiums.
3. Devices do not have to “take turns” as often, which lowers latency. This enables users to avail various time critical apps such as cloud gaming, AR/VR, real time conferencing etc.
4. Streams can be allocated dynamically depending on demand. Due to this, heavy demand devices can get more streams, while light demand devices use fewer.
5. It also offers future proofing. Even if number of devices keep growing, the 16x16 MU-MIMO ensures wifi 7 would not get congested easily.

Conclusion: Wi-Fi 7 MU-MIMO doubles the spatial streams, enabling more devices to be served at once, with higher speeds, lower latency, and more efficient use of spectrum. It’s one of the key reasons Wi-Fi 7 is being positioned as the wireless backbone for next-gen applications like AR/VR, 8K video, smart cities and industrial IoT.