Wi-Fi 7 now official as the Wi-Fi Alliance announces the Wi-Fi Certified 7 program

The Wi-Fi Alliance has just announced the "Wi-Fi Certified 7" program, thereby officially certifying the new Wi-Fi 7 wireless standard.

Wait, haven't brands already announced Wi-Fi 7 products for some time? Yes, while we already have Wi-Fi 7 devices in the market (like the ROG Rapture GT-BE98), the wireless standard itself hasn't actually be ratified.

This changes now as the Wi-Fi Alliance has finally made the standard official. Furthermore, this new certification program will ensure that all Wi-Fi 7 devices meet a certain set of requirements and feature support.

The key features worth knowing are the following:

• Support for wider 320MHz channels
• Multi-link Operation (MLO)
• 4K QAM

We covered these in greater detail in our Wi-Fi 7 guide, but essentially, it should mean faster, more reliable wireless performance, as well as the ability for routers to support more wireless devices concurrently.

The greater implication of this announcement is that we should finally see more Wi-Fi 7 devices enter the market.

There's no question that the first would be routers, and while that's exciting, I think the bigger question is when will client devices like phones, notebooks, and tablets start supporting Wi-Fi 7. Though Wi-Fi 7 routers will be backwards compatible, we still need Wi-Fi 7 client devices to get the best out of them.

Still, this is an important day of wireless networking, as it officially marks the start of our eventual transition to the new Wi-Fi 7 standard.

Source: Wi-Fi Alliance

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