Networking

The Small Business’ Guide to Adopting Wi-Fi 7

With client devices increasingly supporting the capability, SMB adoption is projected to take off come the fall.

Dave Nyczepir is a senior editor at BizTech.

Small businesses must prepare their IT infrastructure for Wi-Fi 7, if they want to follow in the footsteps of early adopters including large enterprises and universities.

These organizations led an uptick in Wi-Fi 7 adoption last quarter, driven by the high density of users and applications on their networks, while more movement is expected from small businesses this fall.

Wi-Fi 7 has been around for about 18 months, and the increasing number of client devices supporting the capability at different price points is only growing. The first step to adoption is to find an industry partner that’s already deploying a Wi-Fi 7 solution.

“Before you even start to configure and run the network, you've got to make sure the infrastructure is deployed in the right places,” says Christian Gilby, senior director of product marketing at Juniper Networks. “Look for a partner who has that expertise in Wi-Fi design and has started to deploy Wi-Fi 7, so they’re understanding the experiences there.”

Here is your essential small business guide to Wi-Fi 7 adoption.

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Target High-Density Areas With Wi-Fi 7 Service

The larger the network, the longer Wi-Fi 7 adoption will take.

Small businesses should work with their industry partners to initially target areas where they have many devices or users. For instance, coffee shops and storefronts should be prioritized over offices because they will need higher density.

Experts also recommend conducting a site survey to get a full assessment of the network and ensure that Wi-Fi 7 access points are placed for maximum signal strength and capacity.

Ensure Wired Networks Can Handle Power Requirements

Some small businesses are already on Wi-Fi 6E, which uses the 6 gigahertz spectrum — double what was previously available. Wi-Fi 7 boosts that speed further and gives small businesses the ability to bond multiple frequencies or channels to boost density and throughput.

“A lot of the newer radios require higher power to operate at full speed,” Gilby says. “That’s where you want to make sure that your switching infrastructure is ready to support that.”

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A 10-gigabit Ethernet uplink is preferable, so small businesses can take full advantage of the bandwidth Wi-Fi 7 offers, says Nat Chidambaram, head of products at NETGEAR. This is because Wi-Fi 7 access points require more Power over Ethernet budget from switches to support their full feature set.

“One of the biggest advantages is data rates,” Chidambaram says. “Speeds and feeds are very high with Wi-Fi 7 in order to support the rich, real-time applications with multilink operation.”

Secure Wi-Fi 7 According to the Latest Standards

Small businesses should secure the connection between users and the Wi-Fi 7 network with Wi-Fi Protected Access 3, the latest security standard that leverages high encryption, Gilby says.

Next, small businesses should implement the IEEE 802.1X networking standard, so they can use a password or certificate to authenticate.

Secure the edge of the network with firewalls, and leverage VPN connections site to site, Gilby says.

Solutions that leverage AIOps to simplify the networks are critical.”

Christian Gilby Senior Director of Product Marketing, Juniper Networks

Small businesses should also be profiling their traffic. “I think it's important to look at the devices authenticating when they come onto the network,” Gilby says.

Network Access Control might be “old” tech, but it continues to be critical in securing the edge by identifying the user’s role or device and pushing the proper policy to secure them or the app, he says.

Look to AIOps, Not Personnel, To Optimize the Network

Large enterprises and universities have the luxury of dedicating personnel to tuning their Wi-Fi 7 networks and optimizing settings regularly; small businesses don’t. Fortunately, small businesses can automate these processes using artificial intelligence operations.

AIOps also automatically flags or even fixes network issues as they arise.

“I think one of the big challenges as Wi-Fi has evolved is there’s been more complexity, a lot more settings, a lot more apps and devices connecting to the network,” Gilby says. “Solutions that leverage AIOps to simplify the networks are critical.”

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