Nokia Sets Out Vision for Future Wi-Fi 9 Before Wi-Fi 8 Has Even Arrived

Networking technology giant Nokia has today set out its “early vision” for the next.. next generation of Wi-Fi 9 wireless networking standards. This is despite the fact that work is still ongoing to develop the final standard for the future Wi-Fi 8 (802.11bn – Ultra High Reliability) standard (here and here), which isn’t expected to be finalised until May 2028.

The pace of WiFi standards development has, in recent years, started to become ridiculously fast. The first Wi-Fi 6 kit had hardly even had a chance to hit the market before it was promptly superseded by Wi-Fi 7 and, as above, we only recently started talking about the future launch of Wi-Fi 8. But today Nokia has amped the development cycle up to a new level of absurdity by starting to talk about what Wi-Fi 9 should deliver.

Nokia’s perspective at such an early stage is naturally full of generalisations and hypothetical soundbites, which doesn’t actually tell us an awful lot about the specific technical changes they’re looking to add into the future technology.

“As digital experiences become more immersive, intelligent and interactive, wireless networks must evolve beyond simply being ‘fast enough’. The next generation of Wi-Fi needs to support applications where responsiveness, reliability and predictability are just as critical as speed,” says the announcement, while somewhat ironically seeming to cannibalise a few of the existing goals for Wi-Fi 8.

Nokia’s Vision for What Wi-Fi 9 Must Deliver

Wi-Fi 9 will focus on real-world performance, not just theoretical peak speeds. This includes:

➤ Multi-gigabit speeds that users actually experience on their smartphones, XR-devices and laptops to fully utilise next-generation fibre broadband connections.

➤ Predictable and reliable connectivity, particularly for emerging use cases like immersive media, robotics and tactile interaction where delays beyond 10ms and packet loss cannot be tolerated.

➤ High performance in dense environments, supporting dozens of connected devices simultaneously running real-time and high-bandwidth applications.

➤ Improved energy efficiency, ensuring higher performance does not come at the cost of increased power consumption for mobile devices and access points.

Together, these capabilities would allow Wi-Fi to support a new generation of digital services that depend on instant, seamless connectivity.

Nokia goes on the highlight how Wi-Fi 9 is expected to “evolve alongside future 6G [mobile] networks” (the same could also be said of Wi-Fi 8) and will need to function in an environment where fixed full fibre broadband (FTTP) lines are reaching speeds of 10Gbps and even 25Gbps etc. We also get the usual hype about needing to support next-generation AR / VR collaboration tools and AI-driven digital experiences, as well as optimisations.

Nokia’s Statement

“We are bringing this vision into industry discussions as the Wi-Fi ecosystem gathers to explore what comes beyond IEEE 802.11bn, the upcoming Wi-Fi 8 generation currently under development.

We are calling for early alignment across the industry around clear performance goals and use-case-driven requirements, ensuring that the next generation of Wi-Fi evolves alongside fibre broadband and future 6G networks. Close coordination across wireless and wireline technologies will be essential to deliver consistent, predictable performance across environments.

Wi‑Fi will also continue to evolve as part of a broader wireless ecosystem. Future Wi‑Fi generations will work alongside 6G and other wide‑area wireless technologies, with each technology optimised for different environments and use cases. Together, they will underpin the immersive, intelligent and real‑time experiences now beginning to emerge.

By setting out this vision now, our aim is to help guide the next phase of wireless innovation – ensuring future wireless networks can support the immersive, intelligent and real-time experiences that will define the next era of digital connectivity.”

In fairness, we do now have a pretty solid idea of what the final Wi-Fi 8 specifications and standards are going to look like, which means that there is some scope for starting the thought process for what Wi-Fi 9 may look like. But one risk from doing this in public too early is that you end up with confused messaging between two in-development standards, while discouraging adoption of both existing Wi-Fi 7 and future Wi-Fi 8 kit before we even know what Wi-Fi 9 will deliver.