Qualcomm brings Wi-Fi 7 adapters to laptops and smartphones this year

Qualcomm announces the FastConnect 7800 Network Adapter. It offers support for Wi-Fi 7, or 802.11be. In addition, the adapter supports Bluetooth 5.3 with two Bluetooth radios.

Qualcomm’s FastConnect 7800 offers support for Wi-Fi 7, the successor to Wi-Fi 6E. For now, the specification for Wi-Fi 7, or IEEE standard 802.11be, is still a draft, but manufacturers are already developing products based on the new generation of Wi-Fi. As with Wi-Fi 6E, there is support for 2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz.

With the FastConnect 7800, this leads to peak speeds of up to 5.8Gbit/s, Qualcomm promises. This can be done via a single channel with a width of 320MHz or two bundled 160MHz channels. If 6GHz is not available, the speed will be up to 4.3Gbit/s, the claim is. Wi-Fi 7 allows devices to switch between channels at 5GHz and 6GHz, but Qualcomm also says throughput can be aggregated to avoid network congestion and provide lower latency. Qualcomm calls this High Band Simultaneous Multi-Link.

FastConnect 7800 supports Bluetooth 5.3, which includes LE Audio functionality. This technique makes it possible to send out several independent, but synchronous audio streams, and there is also a broadcast option. Qualcomm uses two bluetooth radios with its network adapter to increase the range and decrease the time it takes to pair. The Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 will appear in products such as laptops and smartphones from the second half of the year.