[callalex]

> but you can't stop collisions with neighbors

I’m not convinced this is true. Right now all equipment screams at full power all the time, but it doesn’t have to be this way. They control the spec. They could enforce self-limiting when an AP detects more than 5 other APs, for example. And currently there is a lot of neat stuff in the spec for APs to collaborate with each other when they share a backhaul, but not so much for independent APs. Sure, you will have some jerks that go out of their way to override these features but for 99.999% of people who just plug in an appliance and never touch any configuration there are wins to be had there.

[emaciatedslug]

Just a shot in the dark hypothesis. Given the congestion is the issue and solely on the density of the population of AP's per given square meter (or cubic meter in apartments etc). I propose that AP's delegate the broadcast power based on real time bandwidth requirements based on upstream incoming packets to be retransmitted to the hosts either by the assumed internet interface or other attached to the AP. If the power is sufficient for transmitting the appropriate packets per second, given the bandwidth demands and latency requirements would it not increase available transmission spectrum for a collective dense environment?

[astrange]

WiFi 6 (ax) did add several new features designed to help with this, called spatial reuse.