MediaTek plans to demo Wi-Fi 7 for the first time at CES 2022

[Daniel Sims]

Something to look forward to: At a company event this week, MediaTek confirmed it would demo Wi-Fi 7 at CES next January, becoming one of the first companies to dip its toes into the upcoming standard. Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are still pretty new, and consumer adoption of Wi-Fi 7 is a ways off.

PC Magazine notes the confirmation came from a slide during a presentation at the MediaTek Summit on Friday. The keynote mentions that Wi-Fi 7 should increase speeds by a factor of 2.4, compared to Wi-Fi 6E, which the IEEE introduced last year.

"We are going to participate in Wi-Fi 7 technology," said Associate VP for Product Marketing James Chen. "We want to be the leaders."

Chen said that the higher speed applies when using the same number of antennas as Wi-Fi 6E. He also pointed out that Wi-Fi 7 will be better at blocking interference from neighboring networks. Even though MediaTek intends to demo Wi-Fi 7, also known as 802.11be, next year, a paper suggests the IEEE won't finish standards for the technology until 2024. The report also says Wi-Fi 7 could bring speeds of up to 40 gigabits per second.

.@MediaTek is bullish on #Wi-Fi7 and will be showing demos at #CES2022 and says it will be one of the first adopters but isn't claiming to be the first. #MediaTekSummit pic.twitter.com/VdOIUCLdJP

— Anshel Sag (@anshelsag) November 18, 2021

Qualcomm started talking about Wi-Fi 7 back in 2019 before Wi-Fi 6 was even available. According to CNET, the company's vice president of technology, V.K. Jones, said Wi-Fi 7 could reach speeds faster than wired. Jones also said Wi-Fi 7 would be able to use more antennas than Wi-Fi 6, and they won't need to all be bunched up together at one access point. That could help give Wi-Fi 7 a stronger signal across larger spaces. Wi-Fi 7 may even be able to use the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands simultaneously.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/92312-mediatek-plans-demo-wifi-7-first-time-ces.html

 

[p51d007]

It's just like (to some point) 5G...not "really" needed, but more wi-fee's and G bees...$$$ sells more.

 

[VitalyT]

The report also says WiFi 7 could bring speeds of up to 40 gigabits per second.

Yeah. Maybe it finally will be able to compete with 1Gb Ethernet.

 

[Uncle Al]

It's just like (to some point) 5G...not "really" needed, but more wi-fee's and G bees...$$$ sells more.

I have to disagree. 5G is very much needed, otherwise all those phone and tablet companies just wouldn't have as good an opportunity to fleece us on what we don't need .... unless they tell us so! LOL

 

[Vanderlinde]

What about security?

I'm sure that a standard like Wifi7 comes with an obvious backdoor, otherwise it woud'nt be accepted by country's like france or so.

I mean all wifi pretty much is weak to this day. This is why I always prefer wired over wireless.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Given the ridiculous prices of the newest wifi routers can we look forward to seeing penta band $2K routers the size of a suitcase with 18 antennas in a few years.

 

[Watzupken]

Sometimes I wonder if that many people really need this sorts of WIFI speed. For gamers, the increase bandwidth don't contribute to the smoothness of the game since it depends on the latency/ ping. For people streaming movies, not really as well since 4K movies only requires less than 200 Mbps. For those just surfing net most of the time, that's even worst, but is likely the biggest market. So this is basically for a very limited and niche users.

 

[Ben Myers]

Wifi 6 presents some issues. I'm living through a Wifi 6 router setup now, and older 802.11ac mobile phones seem to have their issues. And that's after I upgrade the remaining laptops here to Wifi 6 802.11ax internal wifi cards. Slow down with the wifi 7!

 

[Ben Myers]

Sometimes I wonder if that many people really need this sorts of WIFI speed. For gamers, the increase bandwidth don't contribute to the smoothness of the game since it depends on the latency/ ping. For people streaming movies, not really as well since 4K movies only requires less than 200 Mbps. For those just surfing net most of the time, that's even worst, but is likely the biggest market. So this is basically for a very limited and niche users.

If you've got lots of people yammering away on Zoom or Teams or Webex or other, yes the bandwidth is very good, even with HDMI webcam and voices synced perfectly with a smoothly moving image. Ever see talking heads on TV talking from afar with blurred image on screen and hiccups while they talk? Those people need 802.11ac at minimum, if not Wifi 6.