Wireless network technology has undergone seven major updates since its first standardization in 1997. And “Wi Fi 1” to “Wi Fi 7” are simplified naming conventions adopted by the industry to facilitate consumer understanding, which actually correspond to the 802.11 series of wireless LAN protocol standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Each generation of Wi Fi corresponds to a sub version of 802.11, and as the version evolves, significant changes occur in speed, frequency band, stability, and security.
Wi Fi 1 (802.11b), as the first widely used commercial Wi Fi standard, was launched in 1999, achieving basic wireless network access. It operates in the 2.4GHz frequency band, with a theoretical maximum speed of 11Mbps. But its speed is relatively low, and the 2.4GHz frequency band is susceptible to interference from other household appliances, and its security is limited to WEP encryption, which has been phased out today.
Wi Fi 2 (802.11a) was released simultaneously with 802.11b, but adopted different technological paths. It uses the 5GHz frequency band with less interference and more efficient OFDM technology, providing a data transmission rate of up to 54Mbps. However, due to the physical characteristics of 5GHz signals, their coverage and penetration capabilities are not as good as 2.4GHz, and coupled with the high cost of early equipment, their popularity is much lower than 802.11b.
The Wi Fi 3 (802.11g) standard was introduced in 2003, effectively integrating the advantages of the previous two generations of technology. It applies the OFDM technology of 802.11a to the more widely used 2.4GHz frequency band, achieving a 54Mbps rate equivalent to 802.11a while maintaining backward compatibility with 802.11b devices. This feature quickly became mainstream in the market, driving the popularization of home wireless networks.
Wi Fi 4 (802.11n) marks a major breakthrough in Wi Fi performance. This standard introduces MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) technology for the first time, utilizing multiple antennas to simultaneously transmit and receive data, greatly improving throughput and connection stability. The theoretical speed can reach up to 600Mbps. At the same time, it is also the first standard to support dual band operation of 2.4GHz and 5GHz, providing reliable support for high bandwidth applications such as high-definition video streaming and online gaming.
The Wi Fi 5 (802.11ac) standard was released in 2013, focusing on improving performance in the 5GHz frequency band. It further improves the transmission rate by supporting wider channel bandwidths (such as 80MHz and 160MHz) and introducing more efficient modulation methods (256-QAM), with a theoretical value of up to 6.9Gbps. More importantly, it introduces MU-MIMO (Multi User MIMO) technology, allowing routers to simultaneously send data to multiple devices, improving network efficiency in multi device connectivity scenarios to meet higher demands such as 4K video streaming.
Wi Fi 6 (802.11ax) was launched in 2019, with a design focus shifting from simply improving peak speed to optimizing overall network efficiency and capacity. The key technology OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) can divide wireless channels into smaller resource units and allocate them to multiple devices for simultaneous use, thereby significantly reducing latency and conflicts in high-density device environments. In addition, TWT (Target Wake Time) technology effectively reduces the power consumption of Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Wi Fi 7 (802.11be), as the latest generation standard, will gradually be commercialized in 2024, aiming to meet the needs of future cutting-edge applications. Its core innovations include supporting 320MHz ultra wide channels, adopting more efficient 4096-QAM modulation, and the most revolutionary MLO (Multi Link Operation) technology. MLO allows devices to establish and use data links on multiple frequency bands simultaneously, enabling rate aggregation or seamless switching, resulting in extremely high throughput and low latency. These features enable it to support 8K video streaming AR/VR、 Cloud gaming and industrial automation are application scenarios that require extremely strict network performance.
Ruigu Electronic 
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