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WBA Industry Report 2026
The WBA Industry Report 2026 captures a pivotal moment for the global wireless ecosystem, revealing strong confidence in Wi-Fi’s future and accelerated momentum behind next-generation technologies. Surveying leaders across Wi-Fi, cellular, and enterprise sectors, the report shows that 62% of respondents are more confident investing in Wi-Fi than they were a year ago—a clear indicator that Wi-Fi is regarded as critical infrastructure for enterprise operations, public services, and digital transformation initiatives.
Wi-Fi 7 emerges as the most anticipated advancement, with AI-driven and cognitive networks following closely, as organizations preparing to integrate AI to improve automation, network reliability, and operational efficiency. Respondents also forecast strong growth across Smart Home IoT, AI applications, and Industrial/Manufacturing IoT while stadiums and event venues are seen as the environments likely to experience the greatest traffic surge.
The Growing Presence of OpenRoaming in Japan
Following the successful completion of the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, the event proved to be a powerful catalyst for connectivity innovation across Japan. OpenRoaming played a central role , enabling seamless and secure Wi-Fi access for millions of international visitors and domestic travelers. The “Osaka Free Wi-Fi OpenRoaming” service, deployed across key venues, transportation hubs, and public areas throughout Osaka, demonstrated how large-scale, federated connectivity can enhance user experience and support Japan’s smart city vision.
Emergency Calling over Wi-Fi Networks Industry Framework
This report defines an end-to-end framework for emergency calling over Wi-Fi, enabling users without cellular coverage or credentials to place calls, while ensuring secure, authenticated, and location-aware communication through credential-free Wi-Fi access.
The framework covers network discovery, secure connection to the network and location identification, and has been developed to ensure both operational and legal requirements around the world are met. It also expands the availability of emergency services access to unconnected and Wi-Fi only users, calling on device manufacturers to embed emergency profiles into their devices.
Cellular Emergency Calling over OpenRoaming Wi-Fi Networks
As a mobile operator, understanding how to cost-effectively extend Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi) to improve coverage in weak signal areas or dead spots, is key to enabling emergency services communications.
This report outlines how OpenRoaming can be used as a global extension of traditional mobile voice services, combining SIM-based authentication, emergency call routing and accurate location detection to deliver lower cost roaming-friendly emergency Wi-Fi calling. It also demonstrates how OpenRoaming’s bronze performance tier supports VoWi-Fi with sufficient Quality of Service (QoS) to support emergency calling, as well as providing international emergency fallback when a cellular service is not available.
National Security & Emergency Preparedness (NS/EP)
For NS/EP organizations and government agencies, reliable communications networks are critical to disaster recovery, crowd control and managing emergency situations. Networks must be robust, prioritize emergency traffic, and be resilient in high-load scenarios. Increasingly, IoT devices have a crucial role to play in emergency situations. From access control to CCTV and critical national infrastructure control systems, uninterrupted connectivity must be maintained.
This report shows the performance improvements, such as Quality of Service in high-load scenarios, and demonstrates how Wi-Fi 7 supports priority access for government, first responders, and IoT systems under congestion. Wi-Fi enables for government agencies, emergency services and enterprises. Validates Wi-Fi’s role as a safety-critical platform for disaster recovery, crowd control, and critical infrastructure.
