by Tiago Rodrigues, WBA CEO

Since being founded in 2003, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has been working to improve the Wi-Fi user experience, with an overall of vision of creating a seamless and interoperable experience for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies within the global wireless ecosystem.

Our mission is to drive better Wi-Fi Services across the globe, and in order to achieve this mission, we need better Wi-Fi – Wi-Fi that is secure, connects automatically, guarantees data privacy, is interoperable, and provides faster speeds. To that end, we run a series of programs with many leading companies from around the world, including AT&T, BT, Boingo Wireless, Broadcom Inc., Cisco, Comcast, Deutsche Telekom, GlobalReach Technology, Google, Intel Corporation, Reliance JIO, South Korea Telecom (SKT), ViaSat and many more industry leaders.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the importance of Wi-Fi as a fundamental necessity in the lives of people around the globe by enabling us to work-from-home, learn via remote education, ensure that we’re informed, have access to various forms of entertainment and, perhaps most importantly, stay connected with our loved ones. And even during an unprecedented time, Wi-Fi has seen significant innovations and enhancements over the last 12 months that deliver better connectivity and provide a plethora of deployment options.

WBA believes that these new advances in Wi-Fi – including the new Wi-Fi 6 standard, WBA OpenRoaming™ and opening the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi 6E technology – are a game-changer for global Wi-Fi and will be a critical enabler for the growth and delivery of advanced wireless services to consumers, municipalities, enterprises and carriers among other entities as well as creating more opportunities for innovation and new businesses. Recent studies clearly demonstrate that the importance and relevancy of Wi-Fi is continuing to increase on a year-by-year basis:

  • The global value of Wi-Fi is estimated at $3.3 trillion in 2021 and expected to reach $4.9 trillion in 2025
  • Wi-Fi has 16.4 billion devices in use today, 4.2 billion of which are new in 2021
  • 63% of mobile traffic is being offloaded to Wi-Fi in 2021
  • Over 500 Million Wi-Fi access points are currently in use around the world
  • 78% of Operators consider the opening of 6 GHz for unlicensed use to be very important to their network strategy.

Sources: Wi-Fi Alliance, Cisco, IDC Telecom and Wireless Broadband Alliance

These data points reinforce the need to continue to improve Wi-Fi and make it a source of innovation for advanced and new services; capable of delivering faster, reliable and cheaper connectivity to all type of devices and to everyone by bridging the digital divide; guarantee a healthy convergence-coexistence with 5G networks; and promote economic growth, reduce carbon impact and drive social inclusion all around the world.

The WBA is working diligently to make Wi-Fi better and bridge the gap between Wi-Fi (IEEE/Wi-Fi Alliance) and cellular (3GPP/GSMA). Below are some of our more notable achievements and program initiatives:

  • 5G/Wi-Fi Convergence: As the next generation 5G Core will be accessed agnostically, operators will be able to use Wi-Fi 6 as part of a HetNet strategy to reduce CAPEX and increase their ROI. Besides costs, this could have a dramatic impact on in-building coverage, which will be critical to 5G success. The WBA takes the logical view that 5G and Wi-Fi 6 should co-exist & co-integrate and is working to make this convergence a reality.
  • Wi-Fi 6E on 6GHz: The additional 1200 MHz of spectrum recently dedicated to Wi-Fi 6 on the 6GHz band by several countries across the globe will be significant for the wireless industry to embrace Wi-Fi/5G convergence, given the amount of spectrum and the potential data speeds.  The WBA is working with its members to conduct Wi-Fi 6E trials (demonstrating multi-Gigabit speeds and ultra low latency) and exploring the opportunities for operators, enterprises and municipalities.
  • WBA OpenRoaming: The creation of the OpenRoaming cloud federation and development of a global industry standard for Wi-Fi Roaming has been supported by more than 60 WBA members. With WBA OpenRoaming, devices and users will connect to Wi-Fi networks seamlessly, securely, and privately whilst receiving a cellular-style experience. For network providers that get involved, it will introduce policy mechanisms and QoS guarantees across Wi-Fi networks that have not been possible until now.

As CEO of the WBA, I am extending an industry-wide call-to-action to contribute to the further cementing of Wi-Fi as a key element of the future digital society and provide guidance to others to follow around the globe. One easy way to achieve this is by participating in the upcoming World Wi-Fi Day, which is an annual initiative – taking place on June 20 every year – aimed at raising awareness of the importance of Wi-Fi in bridging the digital divide and connecting the unconnected around the world. Please click here for more information and to find out how you can get involved!

If you’re interested in speaking with me directly on how you can work or collaborate with the WBA on our future endeavours, please feel free to email me directly. I look forward to working together with the entire industry to improve Wi-Fi for all!