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. 

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(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.

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.

Disclosure: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company.