With wider adoption of Wi-Fi 7 devices in the enterprise, a common question users have been asking is when their network connections will be faster.

Every enterprise IT worker knows that the challenges of deploying new technologies like Wi-Fi are offset by the perception that users have about the relative speed of their daily work. You might rightly say that the client device has some impact, as does the application being used or whether the user is accessing local files or information on the internet. However, to the user the only things that matters is speed.

Data-Driven Management

A shift in the monitoring of Wi-Fi connections is helping balance the user perception of relative speed increases and decreases. Rather than relying on a simple number of throughput, wireless companies are providing data about the underlying health of the connection. This ensures that the actual user experience is high-quality instead of merely increasing speeds and exacerbating underlying concerns.

For example, if the number of transmission retries is high compared to the amount of data being transmitted, then no speed increase will help the performance of the connection. The user will see things running more slowly no matter what is done. That is, until the retry issue is resolved.

With user experience monitoring, operations teams can be alerted when clients are experiencing higher rates of retries so they can act accordingly. Instead of trying to fix things that aren’t related to the problem at hand, IT can deploy the right people to the problem and fix it the first time, whether it is in the client device or the infrastructure. This means happier users and fewer resources spent troubleshooting in the wrong places.

The other value of data-driven monitoring is that artificial intelligence (AI) can be leveraged to increase productivity further. By applying data consolidation algorithms to the mountain of data generated by wireless clients and access points, you can ensure that your staff are concentrating on the right things.

Intelligent data analysis leads to reduced alert fatigue, which causes issues to arise without proper attention and create problems later on due to overworked operations staff.

Making More of Your Mobility Solution

If you’re curious to see how mobility companies are approaching the challenge of user experience monitoring, you are in luck. May 7-9, 2025 will feature Mobility Field Day in Silicon Valley. This Tech Field Day event will bring all the leading names in the mobility space under one roof to discuss the problems and their unique ways of solving them. The opportunities for learning are vast.

The in-person audience for the event is made up of some of the smartest people in the wireless industry. They are the trusted names that understand the complex nature of wireless and how it interacts with user expectations. Their perspectives on the application of technology are critical to helping IT teams the world over see how these advances can be adopted to reduce issues and increase efficiency.

If you want to follow along with the discussions, you have several options. The entire event will be featured on Techstrong TV as well as the Tech Field Day LinkedIn page and the Tech Field Day website. If you are curious about the latest deployment numbers on Wi-Fi 7, or worry that your users aren’t going to appreciate all the new hardware you’ve purchased, you’re going to want to tune in to learn what is available and what the community thinks about it all.

Bringing It All Together

Speed for the sake of speed usually leads to poor outcomes. You need to understand how your users things, even if they don’t know all the numbers that go into the equation. That means hard data on everything, from raw throughput to invisible metrics like retries and RSSI. Your users may not know why things are running poorly but you need to understand how these complexities affect outcomes.

Shifting your focus to user experiences instead of simple “speeds and feeds” means reduced costs, happier users and content stakeholders.