Traditional Wi-Fi optimizes for 90/10 download-to-upload ratios. AI applications push toward 50/50 symmetry. Voice assistants, edge AI processing and sensor data all require consistent uplink capacity.
“AI traffic looks different,” Szymanski explained. “It’s increasingly symmetric, with heavy uplink demands from these edge devices. These devices are pushing all this data to the cloud or locally with on prem. That calls for smarter resource management.”
Coordinated Multi-AP Operation comes to Wi-Fi 8
Wi-Fi 8 introduces inter-access point coordination as a core innovation. Multiple APs communicate and collaborate rather than operating independently. This represents a significant architectural change from autonomous AP operation. Enterprise deployments gain prioritized packet handling across the infrastructure. APs label and process voice and video traffic cooperatively. The system ensures latency-sensitive applications receive resources even during congestion.
The coordination is enabled with a series of capabilities including:
- Coordinated Spatial Reuse (Co-SR) allows access points to negotiate transmit power dynamically. When one AP detects that a client has strong signal strength, it informs neighboring APs. Those neighbors can increase power for their own clients without causing interference. The coordination prevents the hidden node problem while maximizing spatial reuse.
- Coordinated Beamforming (Co-BF) extends this concept to directional transmission. Access points share client location information and coordinate beam patterns. Multiple APs can simultaneously serve different clients in the same coverage area by steering beams away from each other’s clients.
“It’s going to feel like you have one cohesive network, rather than having four or three overlapping mesh networks,” Szymanski said.
Dynamic spectrum access innovation
Wi-Fi 8 introduces three related features that fundamentally change how devices access available spectrum. These three features work together to maximize spectrum efficiency. Broadcom’s apartment density simulations showed 200% median throughput improvement and 6x lower latency at the 99th percentile compared to Wi-Fi 7.
