ANSI/BICSI 008 Standards for Wireless Local Area Network

At the Onset of Wi-Fi 7

While IEEE 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6/6E) remains the dominant WLAN protocol for speed, Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 802.11 be) is set to emerge onto the market. As advances in the underlying technology and methods have continued, Wi-Fi 7 is projected to push current cabling infrastructure to its limits given the speeds and number of devices it has already proven capable of supporting.

As with the initial release of ANSI/BICSI 008 and the onset of Wi-Fi 6, the 2024 version arrives with guidance for supporting Wi-Fi 7. As BICSI 008 is in its first revision, content has been restructured for usability and expanded, including access point enclosures, horizontal cabling methods, fault-managed power, and hybrid cabling. Additionally, new requires were created for WLAN systems to aid in supporting all Wi-Fi 7 and higher performing systems, as well as the integration of WLAN system within intelligent building infrastructure for those systems which utilize the WLAN rather than traditional cabling for connectivity.