Wi-Fi 7 in 2025: Will this be the year?

Wi-Fi 7 gear began to emerge in 2024, but it looks like 2025 will be the big year for rollouts. 

. Whether or not that actually occurred is a matter of perspective.

“Wi-Fi Certified 7 was introduced in January 2024 and is seeing strong momentum,” Maureen Gallagher, vice president of marketing at Wi-Fi Alliance, told Network World. “Wi-Fi Certified 7 represents the culmination of extensive collaboration and innovation within Wi-Fi Alliance, facilitating worldwide product interoperability and a robust, sophisticated device ecosystem.”

However, there are two very different stories when it comes to Wi-Fi in 2024. There’s the consumer story and then there is the enterprise.

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, in 2024 alone, there were 269 million Wi-Fi 7 devices shipped. On the consumer side, multiple marquee devices become available supporting Wi-Fi 7, including, Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, Google Pixel 9 and Apple iPhone 16.

Looking at the enterprise market puts things in a different perspective. Based on worldwide estimates for the first nine months of 2024, Wi-Fi 7 access point shipments just exceeded 500,000 units, according to Christian Canales, director analyst at Gartner. That’s equivalent to 2% of overall Wi-Fi access point unit shipments.

IDC data shows single-digit percentages as well: In the third quarter of 2024 (the most recent quarter IDC has data for), Wi-Fi 7 made up only about 5% of the enterprise class dependent access point (AP) revenue, according to Brandon Butler, senior research manager for enterprise networks at IDC.

The outlook for Wi-Fi 7 in 2025

While 2024 may well have been the breakout year for the technology, with the first official certification and consumer devices deployment, 2025 might be the year where there is real growth.

Gartner’s Canales said that his firm’s forecast for Wi-Fi 7 in 2025 is to grow to 10% of overall Wi-Fi access point unit shipments. Looking at just the small business segment, with organizations below 100 employees, provides a slightly stronger forecast. Gartner forecast Wi-Fi 7 to represent 13% of the small business segment in 2025.

IDC also sees 2025 as being a big year for Wi-Fi 7. “We expect 2025 to be an inflection point for Wi-Fi 7 adoption,” Butler said. “By the end of 2025, we forecast about 17% of enterprise-class dependent AP revenue will be Wi-Fi 7, and by 2027, about half of new enterprise-class dependent AP revenues will be Wi-Fi 7.”

Not surprisingly, the Wi-Fi Alliance is particularly optimistic about the growth prospect of Wi-Fi 7 in 2025 and beyond. “Wi-Fi 7 will see rapid adoption across a broad ecosystem with more than 2.1 billion devices shipping by 2028,” Gallagher said. 

She noted that PCs, tablets and access points will be the earliest adopters of Wi-Fi 7, while customer premises equipment (CPE) and augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) equipment will continue to gain early market traction. 

“Wi-Fi Certified 7 pushes the boundaries of today’s wireless connectivity, and we expect Wi-Fi 7 adoption will build on the foundation laid by Wi-Fi 6, achieving similar or faster growth as the market becomes more accustomed to rapid technology advancements enabled by 6 GHz band,” Gallagher said.

What’s driving Wi-Fi 7 growth?

All the major enterprise Wi-Fi networking vendors now have Wi-Fi 7 in their respective portfolios. But why and when should enterprises be looking to move?

Sriram Venkiteswaran, director of cognitive wireless at Arista Networks, told Network World that large enterprises planning to deploy or refresh their Wi-Fi networks in 2025 should strongly consider Wi-Fi 7. He noted that at the higher end of the enterprise spectrum, customers are increasingly focusing on Wi-Fi 7 to future-proof their investments. There are also of course technology performance benefits with Wi-Fi 7 bringing enhancements in bandwidth, latency, reliability and efficiency.

“Wi-Fi access point hardware typically undergoes refresh cycles spanning five to seven years,” Venkiteswaran said. “Deploying Wi-Fi 7 ensures organizations avoid repeated operational costs and minimizes the need for frequent upgrades within this period.”

Not so fast, Wi-Fi 6 isn’t gone yet

Just because Wi-Fi 7 is now available and has the promise of improved performance doesn’t necessarily mean that every enterprise should rush to adopt it.

“Overall, W-Fi 7 won’t be anymore exciting than Wi-Fi 6 or AC Wave 2 (802.11ac) and follow the same adoption cycles,” said Forrester analyst André Kindness.

In Kindness’ view, the simple reality is that in many cases, organizations already have the wireless bandwidth that’s needed. More than higher bandwidth, security features, roaming, AI, low power energy settings and other elements are bigger drivers for updating hardware.

“Companies will deploy Wi-Fi 7 as other APs age out,” he said. “Networking organizations will do it to make themselves feel good or take advantage of the meshing capabilities within Wi-Fi 7.”