By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
The push for more Wi-Fi spectrum continues and one obvious opportunity to extend the current 6 GHz Wi-Fi allocation in the US is the so-called ‘stranded’ 7.125-7.250 GHz band. A couple of weeks ago Intel and Broadcom teamed up to demonstrate the benefits of this modest additional spectrum allocation to the FCC. The 125 MHz extension may be a small sliver of spectrum but it packs a significant punch, Intel says.
The current 6 GHz spectrum allocation in the US already extends all the way up to 7.125 GHz but immediately above it, a small sliver of spectrum between 7.125 and 7.250 GHz could potentially also be allocated to Wi-Fi. This band is sometimes called the stranded band since it doesn’t have a natural home or other obvious allocation beyond Wi-Fi. Now the Wi-Fi industry is arguing that it should become a Wi-Fi band under existing 6 GHz low-power indoor (LPI) rules.
“This band more important than it sounds because adding it to the existing 6 GHz allocation would mean adding a fourth 320 MHz channel. It would also add one more operational 160 MHz channels channel, which would take the number of available 160 MHz channels in 6 GHz to eight. This means that enterprise Wi-Fi deployments requiring many APs across several distinct channels to avoid interference could comfortably shift 160 MHz channels and as a result reap enormous speed and capacity benefits,” says Eric McLaughlin, VP Client Computing Group & GM Connectivity Solutions Group, Intel.
The theoretical peak speed for a 160 MHz channel in Wi-Fi 7 is a whopping 23 Gbps. That may sound excessive but the scenarios where very high speeds (and low latencies) come in play may not be that far off. “Current 6 GHz bands allow perhaps 10 people with HMDs – such as AR/VR headsets – to work at the same time while 160 MHz would allow something like 50 HMDs to operate within an office. This is future-proofing Wi-Fi and ensuring we’re ready for ultra-high density,” Eric McLaughlin says.
The demo showed a connection between experimental Broadcom-powered AP and an Intel chipset running channels of up to 320 MHz using the proposed band. “Extending the band up to 7.250 MHz would be a software upgrade only as we’re always four years ahead in our hardware planning, which means such a potential band extension has already been incorporated into our designs,” he says.
Intel says potential future allocation of the 7.125-7.250 GHz band is uncontroversial and is unlikely to face a lot of pushback as it doesn’t appear to be useful for much else. Meanwhile the wider spectrum battle between IMT and unlicensed bands is heating up – for more on this also read our coverage here.
/Claus.
