Wi-Fi 4 Still Carries 33.2% of Traffic, Crippling Gigabit Broadband and New Smartphones
Updated
Updated · TechRadar · Jun 9
Wi-Fi 4 Still Carries 33.2% of Traffic, Crippling Gigabit Broadband and New Smartphones
1 articles · Updated · TechRadar · Jun 9
Summary
Ookla said Wi-Fi 4, a 2009 standard, still accounts for 33.2% of global network samples, leaving many homes unable to deliver the speeds modern phones and broadband plans can support.
Older routers are the bottleneck because Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 cannot use the 6 GHz band that newer Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 devices rely on, while crowded households and apartment blocks add interference.
The performance gap is large: Wi-Fi 7 can theoretically reach 46 Gbps on 320 MHz channels, versus about 600 Mbps for Wi-Fi 4 under ideal conditions.
Newer standards remain limited in the field despite rising demand—Wi-Fi 5 holds 38.3% of samples, Wi-Fi 6 26.7%, and Wi-Fi 7 just 1.8%—suggesting indoor networks may lag broadband upgrades for years.