Wondering whether Wi-Fi 7 routers are worth the investment? A new Ookla survey finds that they can deliver significant speed boosts over previous Wi-Fi standards, but you might not need to upgrade just yet, especially if you have a Wi-Fi 6E device.
Ookla gathered data from its Speedtest.net tool, which anyone can freely use to measure broadband quality. It finds that Wi-Fi 7 users get median download speeds between 600Mbps and 800Mbps, though some top 1Gbps. That’s about a 2x increase compared with Wi-Fi 6 users and a 4x increase from Wi-Fi 5 users.
(Credit: Ookla)
Users on Frontier Fiber received the highest Wi-Fi 7 median download speeds, at 1,010 Mbps. Verizon came in surprisingly low, at 532 Mbps. The data also logged the upload rates across the Wi-Fi 7 users, showing slower but still fairly high speeds.
(Credit: Ookla)
Ookla’s report comes about a year after Wi-Fi 7 officially became a new wireless standard. A growing crop of consumer devices, including phones and laptops, supports it. However, according to Ookla, Wi-Fi 7 router adoption among actual Speedtest.net users in the US is only 1.8%. In contrast, Wi-Fi 6 dominates with a 44.2% share, while Wi-Fi 5 holds a 33% share.
(Credit: Ookla)
“Wi-Fi 7 adoption started slowly and was less than 1% share through all of 2024, but then it more than doubled in Q1 2025 versus Q4 2024, as more providers began offering Wi-Fi 7 routers as part of the service bundle,” Ookla adds.
The report offers a good metric for potential buyers of Wi-Fi 7 routers who have access to a gigabit connection. However, the data also shows that median download speeds for Wi-Fi 6E routers are not far behind. That’s probably because the wireless standard adds support for the 6GHz spectrum, opening up another band on which to receive broadband traffic.
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According to Ookla’s data, Wi-Fi 6E users can post faster speed tests than Wi-Fi 7 users, depending on the ISP. Wi-Fi 7 also supports 6GHz, although not every router is built to use it. PCMag’s tests find that Wi-Fi 7 routers can deliver 2Gbps speeds, depending on proximity. The cheapest Wi-Fi 7 router we’ve tested retails for $120, but is currently under $100.
PCMag-Recommended Wi-Fi 7 Routers
Disclosure: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company.
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About Michael Kan
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