WIFI 8

StephenB wrote:

That said, there is more to WiFi 7 than 6 ghz - including more efficient modulation and MLO. 

For both WiFi 7 and WiFi 8 the max theoretical data rate is 46 Gb/s.

I'm always buffed on how people are walking into marketing traps.

One good example is Multi-Link Operation (MLO). While this looks interesting, fancy, and very promising to reach higher bandwidth over the air, almost the only application for MLO are wireless backhaul on real-word-existing Mesh system. Almost and of April 2026 now, there are virtually -no- real concurrent usage MLO wireless clients available. Another overly marketing pushy Wi-Fi vendor still writes:

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MLO also requires MLO-compatible client devices, such as laptops with Intel BE200 wireless adapters, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and the Google Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.

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Education or marketing? Pure marketing lies! None of these devices are (or will ever) supporting true MLO. They might allow just MLSR (Multi-Link Single Radio) or EMLSR (Enhanced Multi-Link Single Radio). True MLO - with all marketing promises attached - would mean Async MLMR (Asynchronous Multi-Link Multi-Radio) or Sync MLMR (Synchronous Multi-Link Multi-Radio).

You know, why? Neither there is enough power available on the common industry standard whatever-laptop-PCI slots, nor on a single USB-C. Laptop PCIe-slots with PCIe Gen 3 operates at 8 GT/s (gigatransfers per second) which roughly translates to 1 GB/s per PCIe lane. On newer laptops by comparison, PCIe Gen 4 operates at 16 GT/s, or around 2 GB/s (gigabytes per second) per PCIe lane. All speeds are simplex, so one way only, no concurrent duplex. Sure, dreamers are talking of PCIe Gen 5 operating at 32 GT/s, or about 8 GB/s - something still to come. 

The mechanical format of M.2 (NGFF) Connector is limited to max four lanes: PCIe x4 (main interface for high-performance NVMe SSDs), SATA (optional, depending on host support). Three socket types exist:

• Socket 1, typically wireless (Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth), often Key A/E (PCIe x1)
• Socket 2, typically WWAN or SSD (SATA/PCIe x2) on some designs.
• Socket 3, typically NVMe storage (PCIe x4 or PCIe x2 + SATA, PCIe x4), commonly Key M or B+M.

Rounding up, USB

• USB 3.2 Gen 1x1  (raw data rate 500 MB/s, 5 Gb/s)
• USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 (raw data rate 1212 MB/s, 10 Gb/s)
• USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (raw data rate 2424 MB/s, 20 Gb/s) 

So how these WiFi 7 and WiFi 8 bandwidth should come in reality from any device (real world mobile devices, notebooks, ...) to the air is out in the blue.

StephenB wrote:

Though MLO is still a work-in-progress for Netgear (and other vendors).

True MLO concurrently using more than a single band certainly has a future where high performance wired copper or fiber connections aren't an option - in true MLO . This comes - as Orbi 9 customers already know - comes at a (high) price point.

The currently unique full MLO capable WiFi 7 client (UniFi AirWire) is - while comparably inexpensive - perfect proof what effort is required on the host side to provide the physical connections(!) to allow Sync MLMR (Synchronous Multi-Link Multi-Radio) - this is what allows their STR MLO - in my understanding requiring more power than a common single USB 3.2 port on a host does supply) .

However, this continues to be a niche market for now, no matter if we're talking of WiFi 7 or WiFi 8.