Wi-Fi upgrades on the horizon as enterprises eye Wi-Fi 7

Current Wi-Fi standards in use

While many organizations still find Wi-Fi 5 satisfactory, several reasons justify an upgrade to a newer standard. Beth Cohen, a software-defined networking and product technologist at Verizon, offered two primary reasons why organizations might consider replacing Wi-Fi 5:

1. Equipment has reached end of life and needs an upgrade.
2. A company is moving to a new location, such as a greenfield buildout.

"For the most part, companies are not seeing a compelling reason to migrate to higher speeds unless they are doing a tech refresh," Cohen said. "Unless you have the capability [to run high speeds] on your laptop and other devices on the LAN to match, the Wi-Fi defaults to the lowest common denominator."

Some organizations that use Wi-Fi 6 already run 6E because they have clients that can operate on 6 GHz, said Jeff Kagan, an independent wireless analyst. Those organizations understand why it's important to upgrade networking technology regularly, but many don't yet see enough benefit to upgrade their Wi-Fi beyond that.

According to Roy Chua, founder and principal at research and advisory firm AvidThink, factors that determine the decision to upgrade include the following:

• Client capabilities.
• Performance requirements.
• User complaints.
• Budget availability.

"It makes little sense to migrate the [access points] if the majority of client devices can't take advantage of 6E or Wi-Fi 7," Chua said. "With the higher cost of capital today -- and a focus on other initiatives, such as cloud, SaaS or generative AI -- some infrastructure projects are delayed."

According to Kagan, enterprise customers aren't focused on Wi-Fi upgrades because they've been using older Wi-Fi generations for a long time. Many organizations plan to use a variety of networking technologies in the future. For example, private wireless networking is one area of increasing interest, he said.

Enterprise Wi-Fi upgrade plans

A well-designed Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6 network might still serve an organization well, Chua said. A preponderance of older, nonupdated client devices on the network might also reduce the incentive to upgrade to a new Wi-Fi standard.

Chua said many enterprises have client devices that can't take advantage of Wi-Fi 7's advanced features, such as the following:

• Multi-Resource Unit Puncturing.
• Multilink operation across multiple bands.
• Uplink and downlink multiuser multiple input, multiple output.
• Target Wake Time for IoT devices.

"In many Wi-Fi deployments, the least capable client constraints the user experience of the overall network, regardless of how advanced the other clients are, reducing the incentive to upgrade immediately until client updates happen," Chua said.

Another primary factor that has contributed to stagnant Wi-Fi upgrades in the enterprise is the lack of uniform vendor support, documentation and existing knowledge base, said Eric Chou, founder of Network Automation Nerds.

When the capacity, throughput and other performance metrics cross a threshold that requires an upgrade, more organizations will upgrade to Wi-Fi 7, said Earl Lum, president of EJL Wireless Research.

Surveys from industry organizations indicate that organizations plan to deploy Wi-Fi 7 soon. For example, according to a November 2023 report from the Wireless Broadband Alliance, over 41% of 200 respondents said they plan to deploy Wi-Fi 7 by the end of 2024. Another 7.5% said they have already deployed it.

Chua said research from his firm aligns with this trend. "Our conversations with enterprises indicate ... a desire to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 in the next 12 to 18 months," he said.

As organizations plan for future Wi-Fi upgrades, they can make incremental improvements to their switching and cabling infrastructure now, Chua added. These improvements can bring benefits to the existing network in capacity and reliability. Enterprises should ensure the services they put in place now can take advantage of the Wi-Fi 7 standards for later upgrades.

David Weldon is a business and technology writer in the Boston area who covers topics related to data management, information security, healthcare technology, educational technology and workforce management.