Wireless connectivity is a big part of our modern lives, making it convenient to work from multiple locations and use portable devices that are connected to the internet at all times. But while it’s convenient, even the fastest Wi-Fi standards used on Wi-Fi 7 routers suck. Don’t get me wrong, I love wireless connectivity and the freedom it allows.
But it has major drawbacks that aren’t easily fixed, partly due to science, and partly due to a need for backward compatibility. It’s not clear what will fix this in the future as our airwaves get ever more congested, perhaps a rethinking of how wireless is delivered in our home networks is in order. But until then, here’s why Wi-Fi is still bad, even when it’s good.
5
Updates focus on speed, not range
Wii-Fi is mostly fast enough. Give us more coverage instead
The fundamental physics of wireless connectivity makes it difficult to give us more range, and devices using the 2.4GHz band get the best of it. Shorter wavelengths can travel farther, but they have less energy, so they don’t make as good a carrier of data. That’s why 5GHz and 6GHz bands are faster for download speeds but have a reduced range from the router as a result.
Successive Wi-Fi improvements, from Wi-Fi 6E to Wi-Fi 7 and the upcoming Wi-Fi 8, all focus on the available bandwidth while also managing to pack more data in at the same time. They also focus on reliability, and moving newer devices to uncongested bands reduces the strain on devices that aren’t easily upgradeable. Wi-Fi 8 might also allow wireless access points to dynamically adjust their transmitting power so that they reduce interference with other devices.
Realistically, the only way to increase Wi-Fi range is by adding more mesh nodes or access points to your home. The FCC and the Wi-Fi Alliance likely won’t certify anything below 2.4GHz, mainly because the only available band, 900Hz, is only wide enough to support a single 20MHz Wi-Fi channel. That won’t support enough bandwidth for modern needs, even if it will likely improve range.
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4
Random slowdowns
Airtime bottlenecks slow down the network for every other device
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There are many reasons why your Wi-Fi might experience random slowdowns, from too many devices to congested airwaves to your neighbors using their microwaves. These don’t go away when you start using Wi-Fi 7 or Wi-Fi 6E or whatever the latest version is at the time. The protocols just get new ways to monitor, adjust, and hopefully mitigate the slowdowns, but they’re a fact of wireless connectivity.
Streaming apps buffer content before they start playing it to you, making it look like you’re getting a smooth stream. File downloads do similar things, but it’s more noticeable if something slows down when you’re looking at a readout of the download speeds. Wi-Fi is far better than it was even a decade ago, but it might never catch up with the stability of wired networking.
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3
Legacy device support
Those old client devices are slowing you down
If you think about the devices in your home connected to Wi-Fi, do you know which version they support? Wi-Fi routers have to be backward compatible with earlier Wi-Fi versions, and this normally happens invisibly to the user. Now, legacy devices don’t necessarily slow down your network on their own. But they transmit and receive data slower than your newer devices, which means they stay on the air longer. The cumulative effect of those longer transmission periods reduces the amount of airtime available for your other devices, and that causes slowdowns and bottlenecks.
This sucks, because the only true fix is to upgrade every single one of your wireless devices to one that supports the latest Wi-Fi standards. That gets expensive, and it’s also terrible for the environment. But you can reduce the effect that older devices have on your newer ones, by having a second Wi-Fi access point for those devices to connect to. That way, they’re not reducing the bandwidth of the faster Wi-Fi router, and you have more time to think about upgrades to your older devices.
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2
Interference is still a big issue
Your appliances and your neighbors all make your Wi-Fi worse
Wi-Fi routers operate on several frequency bands to reduce possible interference and also to take advantage of the benefits of each. But the big problem is that every Wi-Fi router uses the same bands, mostly in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz ranges, but also in the 6GHz range now with Wi-Fi 6E and above. Every Wi-Fi device that can transmit in these bands can cause interference with other devices, and the chances of your neighbors not having Wi-Fi are slim. The end result is that no matter which frequency range you use, every Wi-Fi device has to employ mitigations to reduce the effect of interference.
It’s not just Wi-Fi devices that cause interference, either. Many electronic devices, from drones to wireless telephones to microwaves, generate radio waves in the 2.4GHz band particularly, and these all cause interference with Wi-Fi. The addition of the 6GHz band mitigates this somewhat as not many devices use that range yet, but it will become just as interference-prone once more devices come out with the newer Wi-Fi standard.
The walls of your home and the furniture inside are also good at blocking radio waves, making the issue worse. The best option so far seems to use wired internet connections wherever possible, have multiple Wi-Fi access points or mesh nodes, and reduce the transmitting power on those APs so as not to have them interfere with each other or your neighbors.
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1
Congestion
Our homes have more devices using wireless connections than ever before
The number of network-connected devices in our homes has never been greater, with the average American household having 21 connected devices. But that’s on average, and the number in your home could be significantly higher. Home builders are adding smart lights, switches, locks, thermostats, and doorbells to any newly constructed buildings, almost making up that number before anyone is living in them.
Every one of those devices has to contest for airtime, making your home network congested from the get-go. When these devices try to talk to the network simultaneously, it can cause dropouts or slowed speeds. While there are some things you can do to address the issue, and newer Wi-Fi standards reduce congestion in other ways, it’s an inherent flaw in how Wi-Fi networks are designed. The fixes all work around the issue instead of fully fixing it, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.
Wi-Fi improvements are welcome, but some fundamental issues remain
Every time a new Wi-Fi standard comes out, it improves some aspects of our wireless connectivity. Whether that’s enabling simultaneous transmit and receive to cut down on waiting for airtime, higher device count support, or faster short-range speeds, the Wi-Fi Alliance is finding new ways to make our connectivity better. But Wi-Fi has some intrinsic issues, partially from limitations of physics but also from how it was originally designed that aren’t so easy to work around. If legacy device support wasn’t an issue, the Wi-Fi Alliance could rethink how wireless connectivity works, bringing better Wi-Fi to all new devices. Maybe that will happen one day, but until then, we’ll have to learn to live with the minor annoyances of convenience.
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source: https://www.xda-developers.com/wi-fi-is-still-bad-even-with-the-latest-version/
