Three Key Reasons Hotels Need Wi-Fi 7 for Their Guests

Business travelers are already upgrading to Wi-Fi 7-ready devices

The world is mobile-first, and business travelers are consistently at the forefront of technology adoption. While the general smartphone refresh cycle has slowed, business travelers continue to upgrade their phones every 24-30 months. This is due to: 

• Higher discretionary income: They have the means to invest in the latest technology. 
• Professional necessity: Sales professionals and others often rely on cutting-edge devices for their work. 
• Demanding applications: Business applications and heavy usage necessitate faster, more capable devices.

This rapid refresh cycle means a significant portion of your guests are already carrying Wi-Fi 7 with their mobile devices. While Wi-Fi is backward compatible, newer phones are optimized for the latest Wi-Fi protocol and many traveling executives' devices already support 6 GHz Wi-Fi, a key component of Wi-Fi 7. Projections indicate that over 50% of hotel guest devices will support Wi-Fi 7 by early 2027. Your network needs to be ready for this shift now.

New wearable devices demand a high-performance Wi-Fi network

The rise of wearable technology, such as XR (extended reality) and spatial computing glasses, is transforming how people interact with digital content. While these devices are often tethered to a smartphone or a compute puck, they require a low-latency and error-resilient Wi-Fi network. 

Devices like Ray-Ban Meta glasses are leading a strong trend toward hands-free content creation and AI-assisted interaction with the physical world. Leading tech firms and numerous startups are rapidly developing "what's next" in wearable technology, and each relies on a constant, reliable network connection that older Wi-Fi standards simply aren't designed to deliver. 

Wi-Fi 7 addresses these demands with advanced technologies like Multi-Link Operation (MLO), preamble puncturing, Multiple Resource Units (MRU), and deterministic Quality of Service (QoS) enhancements. These innovations create an invisible backbone that adapts to changes so that data flows without delay, providing the "snappy and nimble" experience required by these new devices.

Wi-Fi 7 delivers a real-world 4x performance gain over Wi-Fi 6

Previous Wi-Fi generations offered incremental speed increases. Wi-Fi 7, however, represents a generational leap in performance over previous generations. This significant improvement is based on several key advancements:

• Expanded frequency spectrum: Wi-Fi 7 utilizes up to 1200 MHz of expanded frequency, including 480 MHz in Europe, supporting wide channels. The wider channels and clean spectrum allow real-world Wi-Fi 7 network designs to achieve 4x performance gains. 
• Seamless channel utilization: It eliminates channel gaps across the entire allocated spectrum and provides consistent power and access rules on every channel.  The channel gaps in Wi-Fi 6 prevent network architects from fully using all the spectrum.  With Wi-Fi 7, every guest room and every meeting room will have the same consistently high performance and experience. 
• Optimized for modern protocols: Only 802.11ax and 802.11be protocols are allowed to use the new radio frequency space. This significantly reduces contention and unlocks faster speeds.  With Wi-Fi 7, the network doesn’t have to slow down to let older Wi-Fi merge onto the highway. 

To fully utilize these advantages, Wi-Fi 7 adds MLO, MRU, preamble puncturing and deterministic QoS.  Collectively, Wi-Fi 7 delivers faster speed and lower latency. 

Partner with RUCKUS to deliver an exceptional guest experience where guests can effortlessly open their door with their phone, instantly stream 4K movies, join crystal-clear video calls with family, and update work files in seconds. This isn't a futuristic dream; it's the reality Wi-Fi 7 is poised to deliver for your hotel.