The Wi-Fi 7 Multi-Link Operation (MLO) feature has been available for some time and worked well with WPA3-Personal networks. However, in most enterprise wireless deployments, MLO did not function correctly with Intel Wi-Fi adapters, even when connected to Wi-Fi 7-capable access points. Fortunately, Intel has recently addressed this limitation, enabling MLO support in WPA3-Enterprise environments.

If you’d like to see the process in action, watch the video below, where I update the Intel BE200 driver and verify MLO operation. I also test several other Wi-Fi 7 clients to compare their behaviour and compatibility.

Here is ‘netsh wlan show driver‘ output of my Dell computer with intel BE200 adapter. Driver version 24.30.x and 24.70.x comparison. You can see the 24.70 version supports GCMP-256-AES with WPA3-Enteprise where as 24.30.x is only support CCMP-128-AES with WPA3-Enterprise. Note that both version supported GCMP-256 with WPA3-Enteprise-192 bit mode which is different to what we typically deploy in enterprise.

When configuring WPA3-Enterprise WLANs in Wi-Fi 7 environments, enabling GCMP-256 is recommended to ensure that 802.11be clients can take full advantage of Multi-Link Operation (MLO). This allows MLO connections to use GCMP-256 rather than falling back to CCMP-128.

After updating to a driver version that supports GCMP-256 with WPA3-Enterprise, the Intel client successfully establishes an MLO connection to my Cisco 9178 AP, which is managed by a Cisco Catalyst 9800 Wireless Controller. Here are my SSID settings for reference.

You can verify this on a Windows client using the ‘netsh wlan show interface‘ command, as shown below.

MLO operation can also be verified from the Cisco Catalyst 9800 GUI or CLI. The screenshots below show a Pixel device and an Intel BE200 client connected to a WPA3-Enterprise SSID. Notice that the Intel BE200 client successfully negotiates an MLO connection, which is reflected in the client information displayed by the controller.

The light blue pointed arrow can be used to find out MLO details.

In summary, Intel BE2xx-based Wi-Fi clients require driver version 24.70.x or later to support Wi-Fi 7 Multi-Link Operation (MLO) in WPA3-Enterprise deployments that use GCMP-256 encryption. Clients that do not support GCMP-256 can still connect successfully using CCMP-128, but they will be unable to establish an MLO connection and will instead operate as traditional single-link clients.

So far, I’ve successfully tested MLO with WPA3-Enterprise on Apple Macbook M5, Qualcomm-based, and now Intel Wi-Fi 7 clients. However, I haven’t yet seen a Google Pixel device establish an MLO connection on a WPA3-Enterprise network.

What has your experience been? Have you found any clients or platforms that work particularly well, or any that still have limitations?