Wi-Fi 7 rolled out late Q1 of this year.
Written by IT Times reporter Lin Fei
Edited by Hao Junhui and Sun Yan
The Wi-Fi 7 standard is new again.
Recently, the Wi-Fi Alliance confirmed that it is based on IEEE 80211BE's Wi-Fi Certified 7 certification standard will be officially launched at the end of the first quarter of this year, which also means that although the Wi-Fi 7 standard has not been officially frozen, a series of wireless routers, APs, mobile terminals and other products that have been sold on the market will be crowned as "Wi-Fi 7 support". However, there are still doubts about whether Wi-Fi 7 products sold in China support the 6GHz band.
Huawei Wi-Fi 7 router.
The Wi-Fi 6 standard, which is currently being popularized in the consumer market, has been used24GHz, 5GHz carrier bands, but due to 2The 4 GHz band, along with other wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, has become congested, so the Wi-Fi industry's demand for radio spectrum resources has not stopped.
Wi-Fi 6E (Wi-Fi 6 Enhanced), which was officially commercialized in early 2021, expanded the frequency band to 6GHz, with a spectrum range of between 5925 and 7125MHz, for a total of 1200MHz of bandwidth. The Wi-Fi 7 technology solution commonly adopted by manufacturers today is 2The 4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz frequency bands can operate simultaneously, increasing bandwidth to increase transmission rates and reduce latency.
From a technical point of view, 6GHz, as a mid-band with 1200MHz continuous bandwidth, has both network capacity and coverage performance requirements, can provide 100 megahertz of continuous bandwidth, as well as good network coverage, and can also greatly reduce network construction costs.
However, as a precious spectrum resource, countries have different attitudes towards the 6GHz band, and whether or not to allow Wi-Fi to access as an unauthorized band directly determines the future of Wi-Fi 7 in various countries.
At present, there are three scenarios for the planning of the 6GHz frequency band in various countries: 6GHz can be used as a license-free frequency band for Wi-Fi, such as the United States;For example, the European Union explicitly supports a total of 480MHz of spectrum from 5945MHz to 6425MHz for Wi-Fi, and the third is to use all 6GHz (5925 7125MHz) as a licensed frequency band for mobile networks and other authorized access, and China also adopts this plan.
The Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Radio Frequency Allocation (Order No. 62 of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology), which will be promulgated and implemented in 2023, clearly stipulates that the mobile service of all or part of the 6425 7125MHz frequency band in the 6GHz band is determined to be used for international mobile communications (IMT), that is, the future 5G 6G system.
In the interpretation of the "Regulations", the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology mentioned that the addition of 6GHz, 26GHz, 40GHz, 70GHz and other frequency bands (international mobile communications, including 5G 6G) system frequencies is to provide a regulatory status for the use of 5G 6G system frequencies and stabilize industry expectations. It is the first in the world to allocate the 6GHz frequency band to IMT systems, which is conducive to promoting the global or regional allocation of 5G 6G frequency sources, and providing the necessary mid-band frequency resources for the development of 5G and 6G.
There are also questions about whether the range between 5925 and 6425MHz in the 6GHz band can be used by Wi-Fi 7 after the regulations are introduced. Among them, 5925 6125MHz has been issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to COMAC as the first enterprise 5G private network occupancy frequency. The remaining frequency band is only 6125 6425MHz, and if this frequency band is divided into unlicensed frequency bands, then the bottleneck of Wi-Fi 7 frequency bands commercialized on a domestic scale will be solved. If it is classified as an authorized frequency band, then Wi-Fi 7 devices will completely block the 6GHz band when used in the country.
According to the "Regulations", some frequency bands of 6125 and 6425MHz are allocated to astronomy, positioning and other services at fixed locations, and have no impact on the commercial use of Wi-Fi 7.
It is worth noting that after the publication of the Regulations, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also issued a "Adoption of IEEE 802."11BE Technical Standard Wireless LAN Equipment New Model Approval Technical Requirements and Test Methods". The draft comments refer to Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 80211BE) The operating frequency band range of the device is 2400 24835MHz, 5150 5350MHz, and 5725 5850MHz, i.e. just like Wi-Fi 6 devices, only 24ghz、5ghz。
The battle between Wi-Fi 7 and 5G and 6G is still a continuation of the battle between Wi-Fi and cellular mobile networks for many years.
According to data from research agency ABI Research, Wi-Fi upload traffic surged by 80% in 2022, and Wi-Fi data traffic has surpassed cellular traffic and has become the access method that contributes the most to traffic increment. According to a survey by equipment manufacturer Cisco, in 2022, more than 60% of the world's data traffic has been accessed through Wi-Fi.
However, unlike the Wi-Fi industry chain distributed around the world, where upstream manufacturers are mostly concentrated in Europe and the United States, China's 5G and 6G system industry chain has obvious advantages in the world.
In fact, not only China, but also more countries in Europe and the United States are also inclined to 5G in frequency band allocation. Singapore, India, Mexico have all announced that they are considering broader harmonization of the 6GHz range, and the Chilean authorities have even reversed the decision to use the entire 6G band for Wi-Fi. In the Middle East, Africa and some CIS countries, there have also been preliminary statements about allocating 6G bands to 5G systems.
Therefore, it is still unclear whether Wi-Fi 7 will be able to use the 6GHz band in China and more countries in the coming period, even if the standard is completely frozen.
Typesetting Ji Jiaying.
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