Wi-Fi 7 Streaming Stability: A Multi-Band, Multi-Bitrate Performance Assessment

Wi-Fi 7 (IEEE 802.11be) introduces key physical and MAC layer advancements including wider channel bandwidths up to 320 MHz, 4096-QAM modulation, preamble puncturing, and tri-band operation across 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz to support high bandwidth and low latency wireless applications. Despite these advances, the application-level streaming behavior of Wi-Fi 7 networks under realistic multi-factor conditions remains insufficiently characterized in the literature. This paper presents an empirical and simulation-based evaluation of Wi-Fi 7 streaming stability, assessing the combined effect of received signal strength (RSS), codec bitrate, frequency band, network layer protocol, media type, and network contention on playback delay for MP3 audio and MP4 video streams. A physical testbed comprising a Wi-Fi 7 access point and client devices is used to conduct controlled experiments across varying signal and network conditions, complemented by OMNeT++ simulation to assess MAC layer scalability under higher client densities. Results show that RSS degradation non-linearly increases playback delay and reduces link stability, particularly in the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands. The 6 GHz band achieves the lowest average playback delay under strong signal conditions, while the 2.4 GHz band offers greater reliability at extended range. Higher codec bitrates are found to reduce playback delay due to improved protocol efficiency and more effective buffer utilization. Network layer protocol (IPv4 vs. IPv6) has negligible impact on streaming performance. Network contention, modelled through increasing concurrent client counts, introduces substantial AP side airtime partitioning effects that degrade per-client streaming quality. These findings establish a reproducible, multi-parameter performance baseline for Wi-Fi 7 audio and video streaming, providing practical guidance for network deployment and serving as a reference for future benchmarking of next-generation Wi-Fi 8 (IEEE 802.11bn) networks.