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- Hacker News
- Makes sense. Last router upgrade I reached the point where my wifi speeds (at least near the router) were indistinguishable from plugging into gigabit ethernet - that's fast enough for any home task, and the same speed as my fibre uplink. I can't see chasing speed further, outside of very specialised setups.by swiftcoder
- What they really need is cheap WiFi 8 on 2.4 channel only so IOT devices stop shipping WiFi 4 or worse and cause headaches on the network.by sroussey
- Am I understanding that graph about "distributed-tone resource units" correctly that WiFi is finally going the way of Bluetooth frequency hopping?
Ever since I found out that this is possible, it seemed like the obvious better choice because it divides the spectrum across everyone equally with no configuration, whereas on WiFi you (or your router) always had to choose one channel to work on and hope for the best. It might look clear for a full minute, but then the neighbor presses 'next song' 20 seconds later and whatever channel they're on is now trying to push some megabytes of audio. Probably it also has downsides or they'd long ago have done this, though?
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-hopping_spread_spect... (used by Bluetooth) mentions also that some jurisdictions allow a 1000x higher transmit power if you hop between enough frequencies with short enough dwell times on each, which it sounds like Bluetooth would easily reach at its usual 1600 hops per second at the full 2.4 GHz unlicensed band
by lucb1e - FHSS was actually used by the original (2 Mbps) 802.11 radio modems in the mid 90s. It wasn't until 802.11b/a came along a few years later that the world moved to DSSS (along with other innovations such as, er, proper intercompatibility between different vendors' kit!).
AIUI, DSSS was necessary to make use of the full channel bandwidth, but FHSS is more resistant to interference so might be good for the warehouse use case mentioned in another top level comment.
by roryirvine - Makes sense since a lot of networks don't have access to speed. The highest speeds in my area are around 150MBps, so 5-6GBps or whatever is a perfectly fine upper bound for me. Range and congestion however has been an issue.by LoganDark
- You used the wrong units there. Should be Mbps and Gbps.by trvz
- You can still make use of more. Local video streaming from your PC to tv, file transfers between nearby devices etc.
Modern wifi is fast enough that using cables is often not required.
by Gigachad - It's nice to have the fastest Wi-Fi possible even if your upstream internet is slower. Sometimes you want to transfer files locally between devices, or run backups etc. Faster Wi-Fi here can make a huge difference to those tasks.by Reason077
- In typical WiFi fashion, for all the WIFi 8 features to working perfectly and debugged we have to wait for WiFi 9 [1]. This was true with WiFi 5, WiFi 6 and WiFI 7.
Unfortunately IMO WiFi router brand selection is getting increasingly small. I have no issue or problem with using UniFI myself. But it is not something I could recommend to family and friends as they don't know how to set it up. Eero is not available to much of the world outside US. I just wish Apple revive its AirPort Express business.
[1] https://www.nokia.com/blog/advancing-connectivity-with-wi-fi...
by ksec - Wait till you see the number of actual chip vendors.
There is about 3.. Broadcom, Qualcomm and MediaTek. Together they control I believe 100% of wifi chips used in routers and APs. Often it's sold as a package / system on chip so it's also the main cpu.
On the client side there is a little bit more competition but not much.
by smashed - Having WiFi 8 (or even 7) on your access point is only really useful if you have a population of clients that can use the features it offers. I regularly sample the devices attached to residential wifi routers and the facts are grim: in a house of 40+ devices, two can do wifi 7, about 10% can do 6Ghz, 50 to 60% can do 5GHz but not 6GHz, and a core rump of 50% of the devices are stuck on 2.4GHz. I suspect this is because all those cheap smart home things like roku sticks and pet feeders and so on are built for cost and a decent 5Ghz chip is just too much to ask.by kjellsbells
- This is true if you only have one access point.
If you have a mesh system with more than one access point, your network benefits greatly by using WiFi 7 (or 8, now) as a dedicated wireless backhaul that connects the access points to each other.
- > because all those cheap smart home things like roku sticks and pet feeders and so on are built for cost and a decent 5Ghz chip is just too much to ask.
Cost certainly is the primary factor in the decision, but you definitely want those low-bandwidth but long-range devices OFF your precious 5GHz band.
Unless you want the same crappy experience of 2.4GHz band in 5GHz.
by riobard - Even more important: I hope Wifi 8 makes all the good stuff MANDATORY even if it's expensive!
For example, Wifi 7 doesn't make actually useful MLO mandatory. So most wifi router manufacturers - even Ubiquiti - don't implement it! What's the point of adding something to the standard if it's optional.
Ideally, the standards body should make expensive stuff mandatory- then prices will come down as soon as everyone is building it, due to economics of scale.
by jychang - It's the first because we finally caught up on speed. We have it better than I imagined possible.
Last year, I saw 1600 Mbit/s from the Internet at a normie's place with an ISP-provided router. Still have a cat 6 cable around the living room but haven't used it in the last 2 years. Not exactly wifi but I routinely get 600-800 Mbit on 5g networks in crowded areas.
by blfr - A few years ago, for some reason my ISP began to screw up my WiFi. Tech support could not help; I had at least two devices showing the same symptoms; at one point I even shut down my home connection out of frustration. I could only think of two possibilities: that there had been some kind of security event that tripped their security AI and was blocking my WiFi (and inexplicably leaving all Ethernet connections unhindered.) Second possibility: they were deliberately (but deniably) messing with my WiFi access at home so that I would use more mobile data. In fact a salesman told me that would be a logical move. Except it was affecting my Chromebook too.
So my only choice was to purchase a third-party router/WiFi. I did not want to make the network more complex, but if my ISP router couldn't provide WiFi, it would need to happen.
So now I have a working WiFi 7 router, and my ISP's device is permanently in Bridge Mode. I went to the hardware store and purchased a bunch of little cable staples, and I nailed up an Ethernet cable from the router to the bedroom. There are 3 desk positions in here that can be reached by Ethernet cable.
Unfortunately, if I am out on the balcony, I normally need to use WiFi, because I can't fully shut the door when a cable is snaking out of it. Also, I picked up a little USB-C-Ethernet dongle for my phone, if worse comes to worst. The bandwidth is great; besides, my downstream is only 100Mbps, so who needs overpowered LAN bandwidth?
- anybody tried fiber network / hubs at home ?by agumonkey
- I wired up my office, and thr speed test after was slower than on wifi. haven't had a chance to debug it yet, but it's something to consider.by fragmede
- It's 2026 and I'm running more cat-6 in my home to all my static devices. My theory is using wires lowers wireless contention, leaving more WiFi for the mobile devices.
- Ethernet isn't just about speed, it's about reliability. Before I wired my office, I regularly experienced latency spikes and hangs on video calls. After upgrading, I essentially never do.by JoshTriplett
- Stop chasing everything. Stop and give me true open source repos for the Wi-Fi chips and drivers so the already well-established community can care for my router for the next 20 years. Force this into the spec.
https://wireless.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/en/users/drivers....
by 1970-01-01 - WiFi should be like Bluetooth. One stack with generic drivers.by fithisux
- Unfortunately ( for the WiFi Alliance ) that doesn't sell new kit.by dingaling
- Even Intel is doing a poor job with firmwares. Its been such a pain lately to deal with them (WIFI, LAN, CAMERA). Its no longer just plug and play.
- Are you talking about router firmware or NIC drivers? There's a slim chance of vendors opening drivers, but firmware is never going to happen.by ckocagil
- There's only 1 (one) all-open chip I know of: ath9k ar9271 802.11n 2.4 GHz from 2011.
Atheros (now Qualcomm) released its firmware source: https://github.com/qca/open-ath9k-htc-firmware
I have many, many these dongles :)
by ValdikSS - Dumb question: why not drop/deprecate the WiFi standards and adopt 5G/6G across the board (operating on different spectrum depending on configuration)?
Naively, I would assume that would save money on the BOM and make devices more flexible.
Again, naively, why not build and sell consumer-grade 5G access points/routers?
This new WiFi standard is far enough out (2028) that it seems reasonable to fold it into the 6G standard (early 2030s per the article)?
It would be nice if all laptops were suddenly equally capable to WiFi and cellular connections.
by abtinf - How would I connect to my own network? Wifi and cellular solve different problems.by Nifty3929
- My semi educated guess is because different kinds of people sit on the two different standards boards, so you get siloed specs with the cross sharing of some good ideas. You could ask a similar question about HDMI vs thunderbolt.
- 5g-NRU allows what you are speaking of, but imo still needs quite developments for actually being deployed in bands with interferance (i.e. WiFi).by Petelex