What Are the Benefits of Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 for Business Networks? Should I Upgrade?
Get the Latest on Modern Networking Technology from the Experts
These standards also support enhanced security through WPA3—and upcoming WPA4—improving protection against wireless intrusion. Both are backward compatible with existing devices, simplifying phased deployment. Advanced network-management tools in Wi-Fi 7 also offer deeper visibility and AI-assisted optimization. Organizations planning smart-building upgrades, hybrid work setups, or high-bandwidth workloads will see the biggest gains. For others, a phased upgrade aligned with device refresh cycles can balance performance improvements with cost.
Dan Ryan
Principal Solution Architect
Dan Ryan is a Principal Field Solution Architect specializing in wireless networking at Connection and a Certified Wireless Network Expert (CWNE #351). With nearly two decades in enterprise networking, he helps organizations design and operate reliable, scalable wireless networks that advance business goals. Dan is passionate about education, frequently speaks at industry events, and is known for making complex wireless concepts clear and practical.Read Full Transcript
Wi-Fi 6 brought with it some really big improvements, especially around airtime efficiency—whereas Wi-Fi 6E was really the most important improvement in Wi-Fi in many, many years because it introduces the new 6 GHz spectrum, which, and I've said this in the past, I believe is the future of Wi-Fi.
So 6 GHz is this new clean band that we now have access to that provides more than double the amount of spectrum than 5 GHz, at least here in the United States. What that does is provide us the ability to run wider channels, which can provide us more bandwidth while still avoiding channel overlap.
Now Wi-Fi 7 is the latest generation of Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi 7 has a lot of benefits—that you might see marketed regarding it—that are really of no importance to organizations and should essentially just be ignored. For instance, it allows you to run 320 MHz wide channels—so you get really, really
wide channels. While doing so can provide you immense, immense speeds, it also does so at the cost of the amount of non-overlapping channels that we get in this new, beautiful, huge amount of spectrum that we have.
That said, though, there are benefits of moving to Wi-Fi 7, especially for those organizations who are still on, say, Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) or even earlier deployments, right? Those are still out there. Organizations also who have a high density of client devices, or are using real-time applications like voice or video, or those ones who are using AR or VR—that's a thing nowadays—those are all organizations that can benefit from some of the improvements that Wi-Fi 7 has.
On top of that, organizations who might need their clients to be mobile but may produce these huge files—you know, laboratories or engineering firms—those can benefit from Wi-Fi 7 as well.
There are some things that you need to bear in mind, though, when you're looking to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7. These newer APs now have more radios in them, not just Wi-Fi radios either, right? They're going to have three Wi-Fi radios, but a lot of them are going to have more capabilities like IoT radios. And because of that, they're going to require more power. So, organizations should examine their PoE capabilities in their switches, because these newer APs—they're requiring PoE++ to operate at full tilt.
Also, those organizations that might take advantage of the potential speed increases that Wi-Fi 7 can provide, they need to examine their switch uplinks and ensure that the increased traffic that we're going to be pushing through them won't result in bottlenecks, right? That's going to be a big thing as well.
Bottom line: Wi-Fi these days isn't about chasing this top-end speed. It's about consistency and capacity. So, if your environment is dense, has those real-time applications, or is just straight up due for a refresh—go to Wi-Fi 7. If not, you need to plan thoughtfully so that when it's time to upgrade, you arrive there with the right clients, the right power, and the right switching in place.
Wi-Fi 6 brought with it some really big improvements, especially around airtime efficiency—whereas Wi-Fi 6E was really the most important improvement in Wi-Fi in many, many years because it introduces the new 6 GHz spectrum, which, and I've said this in the past, I believe is the future of Wi-Fi.
So 6 GHz is this new clean band that we now have access to that provides more than double the amount of spectrum than 5 GHz, at least here in the United States. What that does is provide us the ability to run wider channels, which can provide us more bandwidth while still avoiding channel overlap.
Now Wi-Fi 7 is the latest generation of Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi 7 has a lot of benefits—that you might see marketed regarding it—that are really of no importance to organizations and should essentially just be ignored. For instance, it allows you to run 320 MHz wide channels—so you get really, really
wide channels. While doing so can provide you immense, immense speeds, it also does so at the cost of the amount of non-overlapping channels that we get in this new, beautiful, huge amount of spectrum that we have.
That said, though, there are benefits of moving to Wi-Fi 7, especially for those organizations who are still on, say, Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) or even earlier deployments, right? Those are still out there. Organizations also who have a high density of client devices, or are using real-time applications like voice or video, or those ones who are using AR or VR—that's a thing nowadays—those are all organizations that can benefit from some of the improvements that Wi-Fi 7 has.
On top of that, organizations who might need their clients to be mobile but may produce these huge files—you know, laboratories or engineering firms—those can benefit from Wi-Fi 7 as well.
There are some things that you need to bear in mind, though, when you're looking to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7. These newer APs now have more radios in them, not just Wi-Fi radios either, right? They're going to have three Wi-Fi radios, but a lot of them are going to have more capabilities like IoT radios. And because of that, they're going to require more power. So, organizations should examine their PoE capabilities in their switches, because these newer APs—they're requiring PoE++ to operate at full tilt.
Also, those organizations that might take advantage of the potential speed increases that Wi-Fi 7 can provide, they need to examine their switch uplinks and ensure that the increased traffic that we're going to be pushing through them won't result in bottlenecks, right? That's going to be a big thing as well.
Bottom line: Wi-Fi these days isn't about chasing this top-end speed. It's about consistency and capacity. So, if your environment is dense, has those real-time applications, or is just straight up due for a refresh—go to Wi-Fi 7. If not, you need to plan thoughtfully so that when it's time to upgrade, you arrive there with the right clients, the right power, and the right switching in place.
