News Intel's Wi-Fi 7 Controllers Reportedly in Short Supply

[Admin]

Intel's BE200 Wi-Fi 7 modules lead times stretch to 12 weeks at distributor.

Intel's Wi-Fi 7 Controllers Reportedly in Short Supply : Read more

 

[Order 66]

This matters how? ( I don't mean to be overly cynical, but the general consumer doesn't need wifi 7.) I feel like it is a bit early to start having mass amounts of wifi 7 devices considering that most people don't even know wifi 7 exists, not to mention those people are probably still fine with wifi 5.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

WiFi is starting to feel like the car industry, release a new model every year.

I know it's been more than a year but WiFi 5 is finally becoming common place with WiFi 6 slowly creeping it's way. WiFi 6e is boaderline useless when it comes to range. So unless 7 has a strong increase in range rather than speed, it's pretty useless for most.

So wifi 7, there's no rush and the adoption rate will be even slower.

 

[Order 66]

WiFi is starting to feel like the car industry, release a new model every year.

I know it's been more than a year but WiFi 5 is finally becoming common place with WiFi 6 slowly creeping it's way. WiFi 6e is boaderline useless when it comes to range. So unless 7 has a strong increase in range rather than speed, it's pretty useless for most.

So wifi 7, there's no rush and the adoption rate will be even slower.

My point exactly. Wi-Fi standards ( for most people) should last about 10 years before people feel the need to upgrade their router.

 

[InvalidError]

My point exactly. Wi-Fi standards ( for most people) should last about 10 years before people feel the need to upgrade their router.

Hardware manufacturers can release as many new WiFi routers as they want, you don't need to buy any of them or upgrade any of your devices because of it. The only reason I replaced my Asus N56U was because it was dying - couldn't maintain WAN connections and WiFi devices were losing connection all of the time. It also ran too damn hot for my liking. I replaced it with a cheap D-Link 11ac router that still works fine today, don't plan to upgrade it until that changes.

 

[DougMcC]

Disagree with all the people who think this isn't needed. Wifi 6 is not fast enough to keep up with a lot of streaming in the household, and 6E never mainstreamed enough because it wasn't its own version. 7 should solve both of these issues, and at last enable home wifi to be 'fast enough' to keep up with a device-heavy household.

 

[cowboys2000]

I'm all for the latest and greatest and cutting edge. But realistically, for the price of WiFI 7 Mesh Systems, I could upgrade my home wired network . I have Xfinity Gig Speed. I sue their Wifi 6E Modem/Router. Honestlty, I only have a few devices that take advantage of WIFI 6 so why on earth would I spend THOUSANDS tgo get the latest routers with limited benefit immediatelty?

 

[Order 66]

Disagree with all the people who think this isn't needed. Wifi 6 is not fast enough to keep up with a lot of streaming in the household, and 6E never mainstreamed enough because it wasn't its own version. 7 should solve both of these issues, and at last enable home wifi to be 'fast enough' to keep up with a device-heavy household.

really? the max speed of Wifi 6 is 9.6GBPS so 10 Gig fiber should pretty much max it out (theoretically). You're telling me that 10 Gig is not enough for streaming? I have 25mbps and I can stream on 3 devices at once at 4K.

 

[InvalidError]

really? the max speed of Wifi 6 is 9.6GBPS so 10 Gig fiber should pretty much max it out (theoretically). You're telling me that 10 Gig is not enough for streaming? I have 25mbps and I can stream on 3 devices at once at 4K.

Maybe he has 100Gbps internet. I still only have 7Mbps

 

[Order 66]

Maybe he has 100Gbps internet. I still only have 7Mbps

wow, I feel lucky to have 25mbps, I tried Starlink and loved it, but unfortunately, I didn't read the fine print on the contract for my old ISP and they wanted $1800 to cancel it, well I couldn't afford that so I was forced to go back to them.

 

[cowboys2000]

I am pretty fortunante that I have Ethernet Jacks with CAT6 wiring. Sure I know there are faster wiring, but where the TV's are, there are network jacks. So the only things fighting for badwidth are the tablets, laptops, phones (all the phones get 5G great at home) and the smart devices (locks, lights, cameras). I have Ap's in the house so coverage is already great. We only have 3 Laptops in the house that can use wifi 6. Only 2 smartphones and ZERO tablets, gaming devices or TV's.

I will say that if you are in the market, sure consider WIFI 7, but also consider the list of compatible devices you have.

 

[Giroro]

Disagree with all the people who think this isn't needed. Wifi 6 is not fast enough to keep up with a lot of streaming in the household, and 6E never mainstreamed enough because it wasn't its own version. 7 should solve both of these issues, and at last enable home wifi to be 'fast enough' to keep up with a device-heavy household.

If you're having trouble streaming on WiFi 6, then you're having some other kind of problem. It's not the protocol.
It could be the location of the router, or that some internet providers (comcast) are deliberately renting out terrible routers with nerfed range in order to upsell you to rent out a bunch of wifi extenders, at an extra fee. If you're on a ISP provider router, even a $20 WiFi 5 router is going to work a lot better, and a be a lot cheaper.

 

[Giroro]

I'm perfectly fine waiting until 2025 for the WiFi 7 spec to be finalized and adopted.

 

[peachpuff]

Disagree with all the people who think this isn't needed. Wifi 6 is not fast enough to keep up with a lot of streaming in the household

Netflix 4k uses 15mbps, what router can't handle 5 or so 15mbps streams?
Now i'm not one of those that says 640k of memory is enough but your example is pretty bad.

 

[InvalidError]

I will say that if you are in the market, sure consider WIFI 7, but also consider the list of compatible devices you have.

With how ludicrously expensive routers tend to be for the first 2-3 years into a new standard, I suspect tons of people are more than happy buying 2-3 years old more mature technology to save $100-300 on something they don't really need. Lots of ISPs have all-in-one modem-router combos that make personal routers largely obsolete.

 

[tlmiller76]

I like using the latest and greatest. But...it just went into production. Wifi 7 isn't even officially accepted as a standard yet. How is it being in short supply A. surprising given it's so new and B. noteworthy, considering MOST people won't even know it exists yet?

 

[InvalidError]

I like using the latest and greatest. But...it just went into production. Wifi 7 isn't even officially accepted as a standard yet. How is it being in short supply A. surprising given it's so new and B. noteworthy, considering MOST people won't even know it exists yet?

Intel is artificially pushing demand for bleeding-edge WiFi by bundling it with most of their newest desktop chipsets. When I put together my i5-11400, I waited for about two months after launch for the non-WiFi TUF B560M and never saw it in stock at any of my usual suspects. The only reason I have WiFi on my desktop board is because I couldn't get any non-WiFi model I liked.

It is easy to run out of a product when force-feeding it to people who neither want nor need it.

 

[dwd999]

This matters how? ( I don't mean to be overly cynical, but the general consumer doesn't need wifi 7.) I feel like it is a bit early to start having mass amounts of wifi 7 devices considering that most people don't even know wifi 7 exists, not to mention those people are probably still fine with wifi 5.

It depends on how you define "general consumer" and on your location and living conditions; for people who live in congested neighborhoods where there may be dozens of signals competing with one another, moving to a less congested band like 6E or 7 can greatly improve home network speeds. It also depends on the equipment used by local ISPs such as cable, dsl and satellite companies. Some of those use routers from a certain French company that put out a hugely powerful signal where the signal from across the street can be as strong as the signal inside your residence. So moving to a band that they don't currently use can provide relief.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Hardware manufacturers can release as many new WiFi routers as they want, you don't need to buy any of them or upgrade any of your devices because of it. The only reason I replaced my Asus N56U was because it was dying - couldn't maintain WAN connections and WiFi devices were losing connection all of the time. It also ran too damn hot for my liking. I replaced it with a cheap D-Link 11ac router that still works fine today, don't plan to upgrade it until that changes.

We do if we want to keep getting security and feature updates. As soon as a new model comes out that proves more popular, they will just end support.

 

[InvalidError]

We do if we want to keep getting security and feature updates. As soon as a new model comes out that proves more popular, they will just end support.

Most routers' worst security issues come from unnecessary cloud-based/connected bloat. Don't buy routers with heaps of feature creep and you won't have anywhere near as many security flaws to worry about. If you are genuinely worried about limited support life, buy routers capable of running open-source firmware or roll your own with one of many Linux/BSD-derived router-centric distros like pfSense and RouterOS and you'll have updates for about as long as the hardware is still worth supporting.

 

[wr3zzz]

Another awfully edited article on Tomshardware. Short supply and strong demand might sound alike but are not the same. Short supply is for mature products running short while strong demand is for new products still ramping out production. This is clearly the case of the latter.

 

[thestryker]

Disagree with all the people who think this isn't needed. Wifi 6 is not fast enough to keep up with a lot of streaming in the household, and 6E never mainstreamed enough because it wasn't its own version. 7 should solve both of these issues, and at last enable home wifi to be 'fast enough' to keep up with a device-heavy household.

WIFI 6 is plenty fast enough, but a lot of routers do a bad job handling multiple devices. I have an AC device which works rather well until there's multiple devices streaming high bandwidth. Even then it's predominantly real time services which the issues will be noticed in.

WIFI 7 does by design resolve some of these issues, but anyone buying WIFI hardware should really be looking at nothing less than tri-band. It's a shame about how much money the new tech costs when it brings significantly more than improved speed.

 

[Matt_ogu812]

"Intel's Wi-Fi 7 Controllers Reportedly in Short Supply"

A new marketing scheme to raise prices, encourage the masses to want one even though there is no need for one.
It worked well for GPU market so why not?