By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
The quest for faster Wi-Fi never ends – and this week at SCTE TechExpo25 in Washington D.C. US cableco (aka Charter Communications) demonstrated Wi-Fi 7 speeds of close to 10 Gbps using the 6 GHz band plus an additional small slice of 7 GHz spectrum. The test rig was provided by Broadcom. Spectrum says it is realistic to expect that the additional spectrum could be released to Wi-Fi.
Sometimes small amounts of spectrum can make a huge difference. This week’s demonstration by Spectrum and Broadcom at SCTE TechExpo25 showed that a mere 125 MHz of additional spectrum in the lower 7 GHz band (7.125 to 7.250 GHz to be exact) can boost Wi-Fi speeds to nearly 10 Gbps towards a single device. Spectrum and Broadcom used the additional band plus the existing 6 GHz band to enable a total of four 320 MHz channels of which two were combined with MLO to deliver the huge data rate.
Spectrum says it is reasonable to expect that the additional 125 MHz of spectrum could be made available to Wi-Fi under similar rules as today exist for the current 6 GHz band. “The band is being used today by federal agencies but it is likely that a similar sharing model as for the current 6 GHz band could be applied, meaning allowing Wi-Fi operation in low power indoor mode. This would be sufficient to enable the types of services we’ve demonstrated today,” says Rob Alderfer, VP of Technology Policy at Spectrum.
He also says that Spectrum is pushing for more Wi-Fi spectrum in order to draw closer to achieving parity between future 10 Gbps broadband speeds delivered to the home and Wi-Fi data rates within the home. “Utilisation of this technology across this band of spectrum will enable speeds approaching 20 Gbps to WiFi devices like mobile phones, AR/VR devices, gaming systems, and computers, ensuring that Wi-Fi in U.S. homes and businesses does not become a bottleneck,” Spectrum says in a statement here.
Spectrum takes a great deal of pride in delivering fast Wi-Fi and mobile services. In 2021 Spectrum Mobile services were – according to Spectrum – statistically ‘fastest overall’ meaning 43% faster than Verizon, 41% faster than T-Mobile, and 29% faster than AT&T (read more here). This can be attributed to the fact that Spectrum uses home Wi-Fi to boost Spectrum Mobile speeds and hence uses a converged mobile/Wi-Fi connectivity strategy to serve their clients better.
/Claus.
