Resources Centre
CATEGORIES
Understanding The Global Implications Of Wi-Fi 6 & 6GHz
WBA’s latest white paper explores the implications of opening the 6GHz band to Wi-Fi by first clarifying what Wi-Fi 6 is and then by detailing how Wi-Fi will make use of this added spectrum. It explores the benefits and challenges of doing so, and it strives to address concerns raised by providers of public utilities, public safety and wireless backhaul, all of whom currently use the 6GHz band for vital microwave communications.
Wi-Fi 6 Deployment Guidelines & Scenarios
In-Flight Connectivity
The whitepaper provides perspectives of the key drivers to growing demand for in-flight Wi-Fi access in airplanes and the evolving technical advancements in offering seamless customer experiences in connectivity from the latest in-flight solutions.
Growing demands generate new business opportunities and revenue streams for airlines and industry stakeholders to monetarize through better services, a new ecosystem and more convenient experiences offered to the passengers.
The paper covers the technical enablement that generates better backend capacity, allows frictionless connectivity and how international travellers connect via mobile sim card subscription to their mobile service provider with seamless, automatic and secure roaming.
The study summarizes the key areas of the future state of in-flight services and the potential follow-up stages for the WBA In-flight Connectivity work stream.
The Connected Vehicle
Automobile manufacturers globally that have integrated telematics into their vehicles can utilize Wi-Fi today and generate significant revenue for a number of use cases, including predictive maintenance and repairs, as well as over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates.
This WBA whitepaper, “The Connected Vehicle: Understanding The Wi-Fi Opportunities And Use Cases“, provides new use cases and identifies monetization opportunities which are now available for telematics services.
Learn more about the WBA’s Connected Vehicle project, click here.
In-Home Wi-Fi Industry Guidelines
In-Home Wi-Fi Industry Guidelines, which identifies the gaps in current in-home Wi-Fi standards and highlights the need for intelligent network optimization. Led by CableLabs, Intel, together with other members, WBA aims to tackle the challenges that have contributed to inconsistent performance in the home, including a lack of uniform coverage and visibility into the in-home Wi-Fi experience.
The paper provides an industry go-to reference when preparing for ‘Smart Home’ deployments. It identifies the gaps in current in-home Wi-Fi standards and services and highlights the need for intelligent network optimization.
WBA has proposed key guidelines and recommendations for different functional areas and as a follow up this paper identifies future lines of work and possible directions the In-Home Wi-Fi network may take.
To find out more and/or participate in the Smart Home 2.0 initiative and programs please click here
RAN Convergence
NGMN and WBA have joined forces to address the very important topic of RAN Convergence. In this paper NGMN and WBA have highlighted some of the requirements and key challenges that need to be addressed to realize service and network convergence over 3GPP Access and Wi-Fi. As we move into the 5G era with new emerging use cases and URLLC use cases such as autonomous driving and industrial automation, connectivity becomes even more important, together with delivery of a harmonized set of 5G services, whether the access includes Wi-Fi, cellular or both.
This white paper serves as an introduction to the joint Task Force work, that NGMN and WBA members are undertaking. The full whitepaper will provide more detail on some of the challenges outlined in this short paper and will answer the question of why deployments integrating both Wi-Fi and cellular access with the cellular operator core have been so limited to date, and what we as a community can do differently with the launch of 5G to change this. The whitepaper will also present and review potential solutions to these challenges and recommend a future strategy for Converged RAN deployment ensuring the best user experience. To get involved with WBA work or to join the joint task force, contact us
Unlicensed Integration with 5G Networks
The “Unlicensed Integration with 5G Networks’ whitepaper outlines the options and alternative approaches available for combining access over Wi-Fi-based and cellular-based networks in the run up to 5G. In a culmination of two years of analysis on the convergence of unlicensed and licensed technologies.
The report builds on the WBA’s previous report, “5G Networks – The Role of Wi-Fi and Unlicensed Technologies” to provide an analysis of the varied approaches for integrating cellular and Wi-Fi networks and defines three alternative approaches to integration, and describes key requirements for each approach:
• Access Centric Solutions integrate Wi-Fi into the cellular access-stratum.
• Core Centric Solutions integrate Wi-Fi into the cellular non-access stratum core network.
• Above-the-core Centric Solutions integrate Wi-Fi above-the-core network using IETF defined multi-path protocols.
Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Decoded
The white-paper, ‘Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) Decoded’ whitepaper, highlights how the capabilities of the latest generation of Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) are set to reshape the industry by enabling a whole new set of economically advantageous use cases to benefit operators, enterprise and end users. The paper will give you some insights about the advantages of using Wi-Fi 6 to deliver the “5G use cases” not yet offered by 5G, as well as seamless support to existing networks and devices through its backwards compatibility.
Download this handy infographic to get the key takeaway points or download the full white paper below.
IoT Interoperability: Dynamic Roaming
‘IoT Interoperability: Dynamic Roaming’ whitepaper investigates how existing Wi-Fi roaming capabilities could help the IoT market with the evolution of IoT Device roaming, ensuring devices can seamlessly ‘talk’ to each other. The aim of the study is to provide a framework for IoT roaming, demonstrating the value and opportunities to enhance the functionality for existing technologies with the use of the WBA’s Wireless Roaming Intermediary eXchange (WRIX) specification, in areas such as authentication, financial and data clearing, invoicing, security and automation.
Network Slicing – Understanding Wi-Fi Capabilities
In this article, the WBA explains how Carrier Wi-Fi operators can embrace the slicing concepts being defined by 3GPP and leverage already existing capabilities to deliver sliced Wi-Fi networks today. It also demonstrates how the key network slicing requirements associated with the access network can be addressed using commercial Wi-Fi capabilities.
