Today, Juniper announced several additions to its wired and wireless portfolio aimed at helping their customers take advantage of the new Wi-Fi 7 standard. Chief among them is a new Wi-Fi 7 certified access point (well, three of them, but I’ll get to that!). I had the pleasure of discussing the new Juniper AP47s with some folks from Juniper, and I am very excited to dive into my initial thoughts on the new tech. But first, let’s start with a bit of background about the Wi-Fi 7 standard.
What is Wi-Fi 7?
Besides being the next highest number after Wi-Fi 6 (and 6E), Wi-Fi 7 is the WiFi® Alliance®WiFi® Alliance’s name for the next generation of wireless technology. It corresponds to the IEEE’s 802.11be standard. This standard, named Extremely High Throughput (EHT), builds upon the previous 802.11ax standard and focuses on delivering higher throughput on wireless networks. This is important to note because 802.11ax was focused on delivering greater efficiency. While greater efficiency allows for higher throughput, it wasn’t necessarily the goal.
Is now the right time for Wi-Fi 7?
The standard is *technically* not fully ratified by the IEEE yet (though it’s very close!), but that hasn’t stopped manufacturers from releasing products. We started seeing “Wi-Fi 7” products announced as early as 2022. Interestingly, the Wi-Fi Alliance didn’t begin certifying devices for Wi-Fi 7 until January 2024. And since then, we’ve seen many larger enterprise networking companies release Wi-Fi 7 APs. Juniper has now announced their flagship Wi-Fi 7 APs (and I’m sure there will be more models in the future!). I MUCH prefer this. Because, while the IEEE standard has not been completely finalized, the last couple of things that they are going around on are relatively minor, and the majority of the standard has been completed.
Having experienced previous “pre-standards” stupidity (I’m looking at you, Power over Ethernet), it’s always interesting when products are released before the standard has been finalized. This can (and has) led to significant fun when adopting the technology. This also means that there may be some features that were announced as part of “Wi-Fi 7” that aren’t included in the final standard. Or, as we saw with Wi-Fi 5, features that aren’t implemented initially end up being part of a second wave of products for the same standard. My concern with this approach is that with the pace at which the standards are being released (Wi-Fi 8 is already on the horizon for 2028!), this push forward with new technology causes some interesting “lag and jump” behaviors when people are looking to implement wireless networks. I’m not talking about home buyers, but the “expected” refresh expectancy of network equipment has long been 3-5 (or even 7) years in the enterprise space. While the release of the standards is within that pace, I have seen a good number of folks start to wonder if they should “wait” for the following standard to be released to “get the most” out of their upgrade. While it’s an excellent question to ask, many times, there are relatively significant other things that need to be considered for the upgrade rather than just the networking standard.
While we already saw Android-based devices that included Wi-Fi 7, Apple recently announced that the new iPhone 16 will include Wi-Fi 7. Many people have said that Wi-Fi technology adoption follows the clients. With both major mobile device OS vendors pushing towards Wi-Fi 7, I expect we’ll see a significant jump in adoption.
What’s the fuss?
One of the things we saw with the release of Wi-Fi 6E was the requirement to use the Wireless Protected Access 3 (WPA3) security suite. For a network to be broadcast in the 6GHz band, operators had to ensure they weren’t using the “tried and true” WPA2 security. While WPA3 was released in 2018 (6 years ago!), there is still a significant lag in adoption. So for many folks, I have to have a discussion around “Yes, you’re buying 6GHz capable APs, but you can’t use 6GHz until your security is upgraded.” And this still holds with Wi-Fi 7. So, even if you buy a new AP, you won’t get the new capabilities until you have moved to WPA3.
And this isn’t just a simple “checkbox” change. There are still devices in the wild (and being released!) that can’t join WPA3 networks (though, to be fair, many of them are cheap Internet of Things (IoT) devices that can’t even join a 5GHz band network, let alone a 6GHz one). In the enterprise space, a WPA3 migration means moving from “username and password” to certificate-based authentication. While an organization will already have the tools needed in many cases, in some, it’s a much larger discussion around their identity provider and certificates. However, this shouldn’t stop you from moving to WPA3; it is a critical migration you should be working on if you haven’t already. However, this has slowed some of the adoption of new Wi-Fi standards.
Why do I want Wi-Fi 7?
Bigger numbers are better, right?! In Wi-Fi 7’s case, a theoretical max of 46 gigabits per second (Gbps) certainly is! And while that sounds amazing, we’ll see less than that (probably around half at best – which is still no small number). Multiple technologies are in play to achieve this throughput. 4K-QAM, larger channel sizes, and Multi-Link Operation (MLO) just to start. These new technologies are about squeezing as much throughput out of the radio as possible.
There are two main features that I’m looking forward to. First, is static preamble puncturing. While this was an optional technology in Wi-Fi 6, it is required for Wi-Fi 7. Simply put, this will allow for clients and APs to work around some interference in a channel. When puncturing is not used only a small portion of the channel can be used for data exchange. With puncturing the AP and client can negotiate a “chunk” of spectrum that includes the interference and use the rest of the channel on either side. This allows us to use a wider channel and work around some narrow interference that may affect portions of that bandwidth. In previous generations, we would only be able to reduce our channel size to fit on one side of the interference.
The second feature that is getting a lot of attention is MLO. There are a lot of versions of MLO, but the short version is we see a new Medium Access Control (MAC) layer that sits “across” the individual physical radios. This MAC is used to build the connection between the AP and the client. This allows the client and AP to “switch” between radio connections without renegotiating the connection. So unlike in previous generations, where you may “roam” between 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands on the same AP and have to renegotiate the connection, with MLO, the connection can be “transparently” switched between the two channels. This is a very rough summary, but you will want to keep an eye on this, especially as we see further enhancements from “switching” between the connections to concurrent use of the connections. And potentially, in the future, the ability to have connections to multiple APs. This will not only increase throughput but also improve reliability. And while MLO is a huge feature of Wi-Fi 7, it will take time for the full benefits to be rolled out.
For more in-depth information, I highly recommend watching some of the presentations given by presenters at the Wireless LAN Professionals conferences. Especially this one called “Is Wi-Fi 7 the Upgrade You're Craving?” by David Coleman. If video’s not your thing, this post with David from Lee Badman hits some of the high points!
What about those APs?!
Rather than making this all about Wi-Fi 7 (because, honestly, better writers than I have done this), let’s talk about these new APs and why I’m excited about them. First, it’s Juniper Mist, and we know how much I love them! Expanding their portfolio to include Wi-Fi 7 APs was a matter of time. These new APs continue the scaled approach to the product line that Mist has done in the past. Rather than having a ton of new APs with all the different options, today, we see three new flagship APs being announced by Juniper (with what one can only assume are some additional models coming soon). Two of them are the type we’re used to seeing. A built-in omnidirectional antenna model and an external antenna model. The third brings a cool option to the table that we’ve seen from some other manufacturers: a built-in directional antenna model. This can significantly simplify the deployment of a directional signal (and sidestep some regulatory restrictions) by not having to have an external antenna. The current model is a 60-degree by 60-degree directional antenna. One thing that many of us would like to see would be some additional models here. Especially a 30x30.
Let’s talk features
Quad Radio
The AP47 lineup is all quad-radio with three 4x4:4 serving radios and the 4th2x2:2 tri-band scanning radio. I like that Mist has held this flagship to 4x4. While some other manufacturers have released massive 8x8 APs, I don’t think we saw the uplift in streams end up being “worth it” overall compared to a 4x4 in most cases. And I can't understate the importance of the dedicated scanning radio. This allows for all kinds of additional functionality without taking away from the client serving radios.- Multiple Radio Operating Modes
As we saw with previous generation Mist APs, the AP47s will have multiple modes of operation. These modes change the radios' frequency bands, allowing the AP to adapt to a changing RF environment. In the AP45, the 2.4 GHz serving radio could also serve 5 GHz. This allowed the AP45 to be dual 5, where two radios were serving 5 GHz, and the 3rd was serving 6 GHz. In the AP47, Mist has expanded on this, allowing a dual 6 mode in addition to the dual 5 mode. This can come into play as more and more and more clients move to the 6GHz band. Now that the penetration on the client side for 6GHz is there; by changing the modes on these APs, you can get a better life out of the APs and better utilize the APs for longer. Where this gets interesting is that Mist’s automated Radio Resource Management (RRM) can dynamically switch these modes. Mist’s RRM is hands down the best I’ve seen. We (along with others) have been able to let it “just handle” networks that traditionally required us to manually “tweak” things with device profiles. Now Mist’s RRM can continue to leverage these different AP radio modes as the network migrates (hopefully) away from 2.4GHz. - Expanded location services and Internet of Things (IoT) support
Mist’s patented Bluetooth antenna array has long been a huge selling point. This array and the accompanying virtual BLE beacon technology allow a Mist network to provide location services without separate hardware beacons or complicated and time-consuming calibrations. And in the AP47, this stays true. Along with upgrading the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio to the latest generation (5.4) Juniper is also including even more IoT features. Previous AP models had an IoT port, built-in sensors, and other handy features. In the AP47, they’re even adding additional radios. While out of the gate, we’ll see support for Ultra-Wide Band (UWB), they’ve also built-in a second 802.15.4 radio which can support Thread, Matter, and Zigbee. These protocols are heavily used in IoT networks, and using them off of infrastructure APs should help expand these networks without needing additional devices. As more information comes out about the support for these additional protocols, we’ll be able to see how helpful they are. We also see GPS on board for Automatic Geo Location and Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC). - Dual 10G interfaces
That’s right. Dual 10Gbps interfaces with multi-gig support. As we look towards that ability for 46Gbps of theoretical throughput, even a single 5Gbps uplink interface wouldn’t be enough, so Mist jumped all the way to dual 10Gbps interfaces. We’ve seen other manufacturers include dual uplink and even dual multi-gig, but not many have jumped to dual 10G. The interesting part will be what the adoption of dual 10G links is in the near term. There are not a ton of organizations I know of who are deploying 10Gbps to the desktop, and while many multi-gig switches have some 10G copper ports, not many of them are full-density. This isn’t a problem if you’ve balanced your APs across multiple switches (and all of the switches are multigig), but if you’re like some folks and have “AP switches” this becomes a bigger concern. This ability to use the second interface as an uplink for the AP is new. But we will see the same ability as previous Mist APs where the second interface can be used as an uplink for other devices, though they will not pass PoE through. - PoE upgrades
While Mist lists this as part of the interfaces, I like calling it out specifically. The AP requires 802.11bt power (The required power is 60W, but the AP should operate just a little above 30W normally). We also saw this requirement in the AP45. This is probably one of the “pain” points we see in adopting newer-generation APs. This newest version of PoE is out there, but access switches providing it are still pretty limited. Initially the dual interfaces on the AP will be able to provide “hitless PoE failover”, so if you have both interfaces connected to a PoE switch the AP won’t reboot if a switch goes offline. In an ideal world, you would have at least two cables to every AP that terminate in separate switch stacks with multi-gig ports and full PoE++, but unfortunately, we don’t always work in an ideal world. So, depending on the different low-power options, this may delay the rollout of these APs until switches can be upgraded. So, even more interesting than hitless PoE failover, is Mist is potentially working on being able to aggregate the power from 2 separate links to provide full power to the AP. This would allow for APs to be powered by two separate switches or even a single switch with two separate links. - AI for Wi-Fi 7
While I somewhat think this is “assumed,” it does bear a quick section. As part of the hardware upgrades, the Mist AI models will be upgraded to help support Wi-Fi 7 features, specifically troubleshooting and digging into issues that are “Wi-Fi 7 specific” rather than just wireless. So our friend Marvis who we’ve come to rely on will get additional language, actions, and feedback on Wi-Fi 7 separate from other protocols. - Ultra-Wide Band (UWB)
I touched on UWB above, but I wanted to highlight it a little more. UWB is a somewhat newer technology that allows for much greater accuracy of location services. It can also be used for things other than serving clients. Mapping AP placement has always been an interesting thing. And while strides have been made to automate that, UWB offers another option. It also brings a whole other set of topics to discuss: different channels, deployments, etc. So, rather than making this even longer, I just want to say this is really cool and will continue to help both Mist’s location services be a differentiating factor as well as make adoption of those location services easier.
TL;DR
These new AP47s from Juniper continue to show that they are not only keeping the table stakes of Wi-Fi 7 support but also bringing new functionality to their APs. The inclusion of UWB, plans for additional IoT protocol support, dual PoE, an internal directional model, and looking towards the future with dual 6Ghz operation shows that while Juniper may not be the first to market with a Wi-Fi 7 AP, they are doing it right and helping to try and prevent some of the pitfalls of being first. And that’s before we apply the entire platform that Juniper always brings to the table. By enhancing Marvis for Wi-Fi 7, they will continue bringing the quality data we’ve grown to expect from Mist to the forefront, making our lives easier as we deploy more complicated networks.
If you're interested in chatting more about this, hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIn I'd love to chat more!