Intel and Broadcom have demonstrated high speed cross-vendor interoperability of Wi-Fi 7 for the first time.
Intel and Broadcom have demonstrated cross-vendor interoperability of Wi-Fi 7 for the first time. The Wi-Fi 7 standard is poised to bring consumers bandwidth in excess of 5 gigabits per second over the air.The demonstration was performed by Intel’s Wireless CTO Carlos Cordeiro and Broadcom Vice President of Wireless Connectivity Vijay Nagarajan. The setup consisted of three seemingly identical laptops using different Wi-Fi standards—Wi-Fi 6 at 5 GHz, Wi-Fi 6E at 6 GHz, and finally Wi-Fi 7 also at 6 GHz.Each laptop uses an Intel Wi-Fi card which is connected to a router using Broadcom’s Wi-Fi radio. After explaining some technical details, which we will get to, the duo conducted a speed test of each setup in turn.Given their pristine test environment—real world performance will vary—the Wi-Fi 6 system was able to achieve rates of 1 gigabit, pretty much on the nose. Moving up to Wi-Fi 6E, the 6 GHz spectrum doubles those speeds to 2 gigabits per second. This is largely a result of doubling the channel width from 80 MHz to 160 MHz.
