Turn off old WiFi to give new tech users higher performance

You may already know that WiFi standards are always backwards compatible. In other words, if you purchase a WiFi 7 or WiFi 6/6E access point today, devices that use legacy standards, such as WiFi 5 or WiFi 4 will still be able to connect. What you may not know is that you can turn that compatibility for legacy standards off – and in many cases, there will be a strong argument for excluding devices that are using old technology.

The reason is quite simple. Imagine you are driving down a motorway that has three lanes. Under normal conditions, with modern cars using the roads, everyone can make good progress. But as soon as you get one older and much slower vehicle taking up a lane, everyone has to start moving across. If you get more slower-moving vehicles joining, you start to get tailbacks and delays.

This is exactly what can happen with WiFi. Older technologies will clog up the bandwidth and prevent modern devices making the best possible use of the latest standard. This is why we believe turning off compatibility for older standards is worth consideration. While it may mean that people with the oldest tech can’t access WiFi, it will give the majority of users that have the latest tech the best possible experience.