Wi-Fi 8: Stability, not speed, is the name of its game

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• Pre-standard Wi-Fi 8 is on the way, but the soonest you'll see it is in Q3 2026.
• At first, Wi-Fi 8 will not be notably faster than Wi-Fi 7.
• It will, however, be much more stable. 

Officially, Wi-Fi 8 is known as IEEE 802.11bn or Ultra High Reliability (UHR) Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN). The keyword in that mouthful of a name is reliability. Instead of chasing higher speeds, which Wi-Fi 7 was all about, Wi-Fi 8 is designed to deliver a more consistent and reliable connection.

Wi‑Fi 7 is now firmly established in high‑end gear, but the first Wi‑Fi 8 chipsets and "pre‑standard" routers, such as Asus's ROG NeoCore Wi-Fi 8 router, are surfacing. Keep in mind, though, that even if everything goes perfectly, the Wi-Fi 8 standard won't be finalized until 2028.

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This will not be the first, nor the last, time Wi-Fi equipment appears before its standard has been formally ratified. Every networking vendor wants to be the first out the door with the latest and greatest tech. 

Behind the scenes, the only chip vendor to have formally announced a full Wi‑Fi 8 chipset family is MediaTek, with its new Filogic 8000 chip family. Qualcomm has demoed a Wi‑Fi 8 physical layer (PHT) and had it validated by Wi-Fi testing company LitePoint. However, Qualcomm has not yet formally announced its Wi-Fi 8 chipset. You can expect its plans to become clearer at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February 2026. 

Greater stability

When the day comes that you can buy the early-model Wi-Fi 8 routers, which I'd expect by Q3 2026, here's what you'll see. First, you may have read that Wi-Fi 8 will be faster, up to 100 Gigabits per second (Gbps). I wouldn't count on that speed. In fact, I don't expect to see those rates anytime soon.

You see, to get that speed boost, you need a technology called millimeter-wave (mmWave). Unfortunately, mmWave is difficult to implement. So, mmWave will not be part of the core Wi‑Fi 8 standard.  Wi-Fi 8 mmWave is being spun out into a separate track. It's expected to surface later as a Wi‑Fi 8 "extension" rather than as day‑one Wi‑Fi 8. Personally, I don't expect to see mmWave in devices this decade. 

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What you can really expect this year from Wi-Fi 8 is far greater stability than Wi-Fi 7. You see, while Wi-Fi 7 is fast -- I've seen speeds of over 1.9 Gbps from my Netgear Orbi 970 on an AT&T Fiber 2 Gbps connection -- it can be unstable at times. In particular, when using Wi-Fi 7's ultra-high-speed 6 GHz band, I've sometimes seen an inability to maintain stable connections. The backhaul from the main router to its satellites has also glitched sometimes. 

Now, those issues may not be a problem for everyone. The other bands have worked just fine. However, if you're all about speed (and if you're not, why are you using Wi-Fi 7?), that instability can be annoying. 

The good news is Wi-Fi 8 is poised to stabilize our wireless experience by prioritizing reliability and efficiency over raw throughput. In the meantime, today's devices will stabilize as router manufacturers continue to perfect their Wi-Fi 7 firmware.

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Wi-Fi 8 will maintain the same maximum physical layer rate of 23 Gbps as Wi-Fi 7, utilizing the familiar 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz frequency bands. The real innovation will be how Wi-Fi 8 optimizes these existing resources to provide a superior user experience.

The plan is to achieve a 25% throughput improvement over Wi‑Fi 7 under the same signal conditions. That approach means you won't see a 25% improvement in the top speed, but you'll see more reliability at the highest day-to-day speeds. You can also expect significant latency improvements and far less Media Access Control (MAC) frame loss. 

Asus, the first company to release a pre-standard Wi-Fi 8 router, has suggested it will deliver as much as twice the mid-range throughput, twice the Internet of Things (IoT) coverage, and as much as six times lower P99 latency, which means 99% of data transmissions should be faster than the given latency. In other words, only 1% of the requests are expected to be slower. If the tech can deliver on its promises, NeoCore will be the must-have gift of the year for online gamers. 

Technical enhancements

For corporate networks, besides the improved IoT coverage, the big selling point will be the ability of Wi-Fi 8 routers to better coordinate with each other. This capability, in turn, will improve their overall coverage.

To achieve this result, Wi-Fi 8 incorporates the following technical enhancements.

Coordinated Spatial Reuse (Co-SR)

One of Wi-Fi 8's standout features is Co-SR. This technology enables access points to dynamically adjust their power output based on device proximity and interference from other access points. This capability will reduce interference and Wi-Fi congestion. Co-SR can boost overall system throughput by 15% to 25%, reducing dropped connections and improving response times, even in crowded networks. 

Coordinated Beamforming (Co-BF)

Building on earlier Wi-Fi innovations, Co-BF enables multiple access points to work together, directing signals more efficiently toward active devices. This advancement should be particularly beneficial in crowded environments and can improve throughput by 20% to 50% in mesh setups.

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Co-BF could make a true difference in real-world conditions. For example, in my home office, my mesh network must contend with neighbors, four other mesh networks, and over a dozen Wi-Fi access points. That's a lot of traffic and potential interference. Anything that helps address that issue is a win in my book. 

Dynamic Sub-Channel Operation (DSO)

DSO represents another leap forward, dynamically assigning bandwidth to devices based on their capabilities and needs. The hope is that this technology can increase throughput up to 80%, ensuring faster data transfer. I doubt the tech will provide that kind of improvement, but even half of that target would be a big step forward. 

Reliability and user experience

Wi-Fi 8's focus on reliability extends beyond the specific features listed above. The new standard aims to use the available spectrum more effectively, allowing more devices to connect simultaneously without degrading performance. This capability is crucial for addressing the challenges posed by the growing number of connected devices in homes and businesses.

Wi-Fi 8's reliability and efficiency will open up new possibilities for advanced applications. With its potential for lower latency and more stable connections, Wi-Fi 8 could be a game-changer for technologies like virtual and augmented reality, real-time gaming, and industrial automation.

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While Wi-Fi 8 promises exciting advancements, remember that we're still a long way from seeing the technology in our homes and offices. The IEEE plans to finalize and submit the Wi-Fi 8 standard by 2027. The first Wi-Fi 8-compatible products are expected to launch in early 2028. 

I expect you'll see Wi-Fi 8 devices sooner than that. Manufacturers love to sell gear before standards are fully baked. While you may be able to upgrade pre-standard network hardware with a firmware update, you can't count on that fact. I'd wait until the standard is set, and then buy Wi-Fi 8 hardware.

While Wi-Fi 8 may not offer the headline-grabbing speed increases of previous generations, its focus on reliability, efficiency, and user experience represents a mature evolution of wireless technology. As our reliance on wireless connectivity grows, these improvements will likely have a greater impact on our daily lives than just boosting raw speed.