Pedro Mouta – Senior Manager, WBA Project Management Office
Since 2017, WBA members have been leading the convergence and coexistence of licensed and unlicensed technologies, with a specific focus on 5G and Wi-Fi convergence. WBA’s work is ongoing and remains accurate and precise on the initial assessments of opportunities and challenges with RAN Convergence. Learn more here.
With its diverse and well-represented membership, WBA consistently integrates the perspectives of client/vendors with the end-user requirements, striking a healthy balance to address the industry’s connectivity challenges.
The convergence of 5G & Wi-Fi follows a similar approach. Originally led by members such as Orange, AT&T, Cisco, Intel and Broadcom, the overall mission is to develop a standardized and functional convergence framework that allows industry stakeholders to benefit from existing Wi-Fi deployments, enhancing them with extended 5G coverage. This is a flagship program in the WBA, with a solid level of participation and involvement from the members that addresses the inefficiencies associated with having two different radio access technologies deployed.
The solution for convergence isn’t a simple one, though. Over the years, many different models have been explored across standard bodies with whom the members work closely, and WBA has been playing a central role advocating and providing key inputs that are necessary to standardize the technical components.
The work in recent years has led us where we are. Starting with a good understanding on Wi-Fi challenges and gaps to meet the 5G requirements and incorporating network slicing and expanding on potential architecture models, WBA members have addressed how convergence could take place in the public, outdoor operator space, and have decided to move to the private, indoor, enterprise space. This has taken place over the last 2 years due to a consolidated assumption that enterprises would be deploying Private 5G for a multiplicity of scenarios and use cases.
In 2022, WBA members developed the Phase 1 deliverable on Private 5G (P5G) & Wi-Fi Convergence, highlighting the key use cases and technical requirements to achieve convergence in the enterprise space.
This work provided a comprehensive look at a set of necessary considerations for convergence to take place, such as spectrum availability; deployment options; how to integrate with enterprises; how to manage identities and authenticate users; Access Traffic Steering Switching and Splitting (ATSSS); and Multipath technologies that are seen by the industry as potential drivers for balancing the user between both radio access technologies.
This was the platform for achieving Phase 2 in 2023. In Phase 1 we had a much more analytical approach – retrieving an industry assessment, laying out the options and the foundations for convergence. The Private 5G and Wi-Fi Convergence: Key Use Cases and Requirements report outlines the critical role new and existing Wi-Fi infrastructure has yet to play in maximizing the potential of 5G, allowing organizations to move to fully converged platforms that offer broad, frictionless coverage and effortless user onboarding.
This year the focus was on specific recommendations, such as the critical building blocks for achieving radio access convergence and what needs to be done to come up with a standardized solution. Phase 2 – due to be launched in early 2024 – will focus on the methods for interworking and achieving the technical objectives previously identified in Phase 1.
In a nutshell, the team has discussed and formulated proposals on how to simplify a deployment architecture that serves for onboarding 5G users in the Wi-Fi space and vice-versa. The team has also detailed a set of RADIUS attributes that are necessary for 5G device authentication in Wi-Fi networks and proposed a technical solution for enabling ‘Fast Transition’, with highly reduced lag, when switching from one technology to the other. Other topics that have been discussed include preserving the device IP; raising meta data on user planes; and informing devices that an optimal but different radio access technology is available nearby, amongst other items that will be paramount for mainstreaming 5G & Wi-Fi convergence.
WBA will continue working with 3GPP and IETF to standardize a set of components such as the architecture and RADIUS attributes that are necessary for the optimized convergence scenarios.
Now, after Phase 2, what can we expect from the WBA members in 2024?
Firstly, two new programs have been submitted and approved by members for 2024:
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Mission Critical and Emergency Services
Use OpenRoaming and WBA roaming framework (WRIX) to describe the opportunity for Wi-Fi to support mission critical and emergency services, describing latest 802.11be functionalities, and outlining a plan to address the new FCC requirements.
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Enterprise Security for Private 5G Networks
Develop and adopt a security architecture framework using open standards, leveraging industry ecosystem and private 5G architecture and fostering the integration with existing enterprise networks and data systems.
These new activities will occupy most members’ efforts throughout 2024. During the last chapters of the P5G & Wi-Fi Phase 2 work, members have already raised a set of topics that can and should be developed in greater detail to achieve convergence, such as parallel matching of QoS criteria; ATSSS and its implications with other WBA ongoing work; and approximating cellular roaming from Wi-Fi roaming through the usage of technologies such as OpenRoaming.
This means that a new program proposal for a Phase 3 on P5G & Wi-Fi Convergence will be assessed during 2024 as several members have expressed their desire for this.
I would like to leave you with a final invitation: stay connected with WBA for the upcoming work phase and consider joining the activities that will help shape the future of Wi-Fi and its aggregation with 5G technology.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to pmo@wballiance.com.
