Last Friday the IEEE 802 Executive Committee approved Working Group 802.11’s request to form an Extreme High Throughput (EHT) Study Group. This means there’s sufficient interest to work toward launching a more-formal EHT standard-development project, which will likely happen after the Study Group’s work is complete.
EHT can be seen as next-generation Wi-Fi — the successor to 802.11ax, taking advantage of evolved technology. More throughput, more capacity, and lower latency are general goals. At least 4x increase in peak throughput and capacity over 802.11ax is one target.
Features will likely include up to 320 MHz channel bandwidth, multiband aggregation, and up to 16 spatial streams. Bands used would be between 1 and 7.1.25 GHz. (Concurrently, work is underway in 802.11 to extend 802.11ax to also include the 6-7.125 GHz band.)
Potential EHT Band Plan (Source: IEEE 802.11-18/1184r1)
Envisioned applications include video-over-WLAN, AR, and VR. The Study Group’s work is expected to last six months, at which time it will likely initiate EHT standard development through the creation of a Project Authorization Request and other documentation to be run up the IEEE Standards Association hierarchy for approval. That takes time: work on the actual standard would probably start at the May 2019 meeting. (In parallel with this, 802.11 is looking at ways to make the standards development process more timely and efficient.)
References:
Most documents discussed at the July 802.11 meeting leading to the creation of the EHT Study Group can be found at this link.