DFS, Puncturing & Wi-Fi 7
Introduction The first thought that would probably come to everyone is that DFS ( Dynamic Frequency Selection) , Puncturing & Wi-Fi 7 are not related to each other! Preamble puncturing has been introduced in 802.11ax (aka Wi-Fi 6) as a method to efficiently use larger bandwidth channels in the presence of interfering AP’s in narrow bandwidths (20/40 MHz). Though this has been implemented by some AP manufacturers, it has not been widely used in the field (few clients had support for this feature) Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) is a feature that is around from 802.11n days to satisfy regulatory requirements in various countries where some of the spectrum had other higher priority use occasionally (Ex: Weather Radar). There are specific requirements from the FCC, and ETSI on how soon the APs should vacate the spectrum in favor of the radar. Please see the reference. While supporting preamble puncturing is not mandatory in the 5 GHz band, it is planned to bec...