The latest advancements in Wi-Fi 7 are poised to unleash a new wave of applications and drive adoption of innovative new devices. The more advanced Wi-Fi becomes, the more use cases it can support. Applications like multiplayer gaming, AR/VR headsets, IoT and 4K video are now within scope of Wi-Fi, despite requiring substantially more bandwidth and lower latency. As Wi-Fi proves to be more capable and the use cases become more ambitious, the margin for error drops and the stakes rise. Wi-Fi 7 promises to support not just demanding consumer services, but mission-critical enterprise applications as well. To this end, Wi-Fi 7 both faces and poses stiff competition to 5G and technologies like; network slicing. To ensure its success, it must not only deliver high performance but also be reliable from the outset.
Key Advantages of Wi-Fi 7:
- Enhanced Speed and Capacity: Wi-Fi 7 offers significantly higher data rates and can handle more devices simultaneously, making it ideal for demanding applications like 4K video streaming, online gaming, and virtual reality.
- Reduced Latency: One of the key improvements in Wi-Fi 7 is a significant reduction in latency with Full-duplex operation & enhanced OFDMA. Lower latency ensures a more responsive and immersive user experience, particularly for real-time applications such as video conferencing and augmented reality.
- Improved Efficiency: Wi-Fi 7 incorporates advanced technologies like OFDMA, MU-MIMO (Multi-User Multiple-Input Multiple-Output), MLO (Multi-Link Operation), 4K QAM Modulation & enhanced TWT (Target Wake-up Time) to optimize bandwidth utilization and reduce interference, resulting in a more reliable and efficient network.
- Expanded Frequency Bands: By operating on higher frequency 6 GHz band, Wi-Fi 7 can provide greater capacity with 320 Mhz bandwidth and reduced congestion in densely populated areas.
Latency and QoS
The Wi-Fi industry has taken steps to control latency for many years. Increasing data rates have helped, but the growing popularity of apps with multiple simultaneous users is increasing latency and jitter. Low and consistent latency are essential for a growing number of internet applications, especially those with concurring users. Poor latency and high jitter can make applications like, teleconferencing and gaming unreliable.
Key benefits of improved latency and QoS in Wi-Fi 7:
- Enhanced user experience: Lower latency and higher QoS lead to smoother and more responsive applications. With better QoS, the network can prioritize critical traffic, leading to fewer interruptions and a more stable connection.
- Support for demanding applications: Voice apps such as video and audio conferencing are sensitive to delays above 100ms. Wi-Fi 7 prioritizes quality of service (QoS) for reduced latency and jitter (i.e., latency consistency). Wi-Fi 7 can handle latency-sensitive applications like real-time gaming, video conferencing, and augmented/virtual reality.
- Improved network efficiency: Efficient scheduling and traffic management help maximize network capacity and reduces costs by improving performance, load balancing, and reliability.
Each Wi-Fi generation has delivered higher data rates, with recent releases also targeting better user experiences. In industrial use cases like; manufacturing or mining, safety and precision performance are on the line.
The capabilities of Wi-Fi 7 provide low latency, high bandwidth, and spectral efficiency, providing the foundation for many new opportunities. However, they also pose complex testing requirements to ensure performance and service quality delivers on expectations. Testing has always played a major role in ensuring each Wi-Fi generation’s readiness. But, as it learns even more tricks, becomes capable of new feats, and aims to deepen adoption among enterprise markets, Wi-Fi 7 presents the most complex testing requirements to date.
7 challenges with Wi-Fi 7
Wi-Fi 7’s major technical advances present challenges and require new testing capabilities. This includes:
- High SNR, a difficult and expensive capability requiring test-beds to be redesigned to provide high SNR and minimal RF path loss within themselves. They must also have the technical capabilities to test high SNR, get higher signal levels, and support significantly more throughput bits.
- Channel emulation of low path loss and high throughput requires high CPUs in the test-bed to make and analyse the measurements needed to generate metric KPIs.
- Next generation latency tools to measure latency variation at rates of 10,000 measurements per second.
- Simultaneous, synchronized monitoring of multiple radio links to validate that MLO treats them as a single logical data path.
- Ability to decode new protocols and packet types available with Wi-Fi 7.
- Scalability and automation of a massive number of tests.
- Overcoming the complexity of cabled testing environments with Over-the-Air (OTA) Testing.
It is significantly more complex and expensive to create and run the testbeds required for Wi-Fi 7 and in many cases requiring complete redesigns. As a result, test as a service with a vendor neutral testing partner has become a popular and economical approach that reduces Capex as well as the cost of operations. To ensure performance and service quality, Wi-Fi devices and networks must be thoroughly tested, addressing this new complexity. Many new Wi-Fi 7 features and enhancements, such as 320 MHz bandwidth, Multi RU, and QoS, are extensions of Wi-Fi 6, requiring only minor tweaks to existing testbeds.
Navigating Wi-Fi 7 : The pivotal role of test and validation
With Wi-Fi 7, the setup process for cabled testing becomes increasingly convoluted and burdensome because of the need to accommodate numerous devices within a network, as well as multiple overlapping uncoordinated networks, MU-MIMO, or multiple spatial streams. The OCTOBOX automated wireless test-bed is a customizable set of isolated chambers and instruments to test Wi-Fi network equipment and devices. It simulates real-world conditions such as interference, traffic, and mesh handover, in a stable, automated, repeatable testing environment.
Automation to streamline test processes: Managing a large suite of test automation scripts can become burdensome and costly. ScriptManager provides easy test configuration, and results are collected and graphed in real time. It also provides easy-to-use test scheduling. Various error recovery mechanisms are available for unattended regression testing or overnight runs, so that testing can continue, despite failed tests. Key test suites include IETF’s RFC 2544, TR-398 from the Broadband Forum, and a mesh testing suite developed by in-house experts.
TR-398 is an industry-standard test plan created by the Broadband Forum for testing AP performance in SOHO environment. The primary goal of this specification is to provide a standard set of test cases and framework to measure aspects of the performance between an access point (AP) and one or more reference stations under controlled laboratory conditions. Spirent is supporting latest release of TR398 – issue 3 which includes variety of test cases in different categories
Test as a service to minimize investment: A comprehensive suite of Wi-Fi testing services help organizations achieve their testing and validation goals by taking advantage of advanced lab technologies and Wi-Fi test experts, without the need to invest in their own lab hardware, operations, and training. This serves customers that don’t have the required facility space or have sporadic testing needs.
Deepak Sharma, Technical Development Manager, APAC SOUTH, Spirent Communications
